Vault Innovation

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m CEO of a technology company that helps pre-med students track and navigate their journey to medical and professional schools. Soon, it will provide experiences for all pre-health students.

What challenge were you trying to address with Vault Innovation?

We needed to create the platform through the help of a tech partner.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They provided full-stack development, including front- and backend development, UI/UX design, and the consulting behind the creation of our product. As we were iterating, they came up with our MVP and helped us through various challenges along the way. 

To use the platform, people sign up for an account and indicate where they are in school. Once they’re onboarded, they have the opportunity to provide the courses they’ve taken and the grades they achieved in those courses. They also provide contact information for their professors and start taking practice MCAT tests. The app also provides them a space to track their extracurricular activities and volunteering. It includes a diary log, where they can discuss their experiences in a health care setting. 

The platform has a school list that allows students to begin looking at different medical schools across the country and bookmarking one they want to apply to. Based on what they input into our system, we have the ability to give them algorithmic feedback. We provide areas for improvement based on their grades, activities, and goals. 

A recent addition to the app is a simulation of admissions essays for medical school applications. Along with this feature, students with pre-med advisors can grant their advisors read-only access to information on their accounts.  

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with Jeff (Co-Founder) and Terry (Co-Founder) as well as two different project managers, Justin (Former Project Manager) and Nicki (Project Manager). Justin started with us but left Vault Innovation to start his own project. Nikki works as our project manager now.

We’ve also worked with Dan (Product Designer), Austin (Full Stack Engineer), and Josh (Product Specialist). Dan is our main designer, Austin is our go-to developer, and Josh works on QA to ensure our app doesn’t have any bugs. When we need to do bigger pushes, we’ve had a rotating set of additional resources with them.  

How did you come to work with Vault Innovation?

We were intending to have a third co-founder who would’ve been a tech founder, but that fell through. After being introduced to Vault Innovation by my co-founder’s former boss, we had some discussions with them and decided to move forward. Based on the seal of approval given in our introduction to their team and the due diligence we did in our initial conversations, they seemed like a good fit for the work.  

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $200,000 with them. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working with them since April 2020.

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

When we launched our public beta in August 2020, we had a goal of gaining 1,000 users by the end of 2020. We were able to surpass that goal by a few hundred. Users are happy with the functionality, and the platform is stable. They hit milestones and continue to effectively iterate on their work.  

How did Vault Innovation perform from a project management standpoint?

We’ve got a lot of work done in a short period of time with their team. Their ability to communicate via Slack and work as a team through various sticking points has been very helpful. Nikki is very hands-on and detail-oriented. She provides us with detailed follow-ups after meetings and helpful pre-work before meetings. We use Jira to track their progress, and everything has been great from a project management standpoint.    

What did you find most impressive about them?

We came to the table with big ideas about stories and thoughts relating to what the product should be. Some of that was met with a little resistance at the beginning of the project. However, they demonstrated a lot of persistence to figure out how to deliver our vision. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

With most relationships, communication can be a sticking point. When we were first starting our relationship, we had to adjust and understand how our teams communicate. There were likely some opportunities for clarification that never happened on both sides.

That led to some repeat conversations or something shipping out differently than what we wanted. Those issues were easily fixed without any harm. We could’ve done a better job on both sides of understanding differences in our communication styles to get to exactly what’s needed or wanted. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure your communication is clear. As founders, we can be pie-in-the-sky people, not knowing exactly what needs to happen to have an idea come to life. Being able to ask questions throughout the process and learn what questions you should be thinking about will be important in smoothing out your communication early.  

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of Barrel Arbor Investments. We invest in various assets such as startups.

What challenge were you trying to address with Vault Innovation?

We hired Vault Innovation to build a short-term rental platform for one of the startups we invested in.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They designed and developed the back- and frontend of the website. Before they started on any development work, they did some research to understand the market and how we could meet user needs. They spoke to other property owners and talked to customers on Facebook.

The platform allows transactions, features booking abilities, and has social functions for users. Property owners can price their short-term rentals while users are able to book multiple stays at one time.

What is the team composition?

I worked with a project manager, a designer, a frontend developer, and a backend developer.

How did you come to work with Vault Innovation?

I searched on Google for local firms in Chicago and I spoke with about half a dozen firms with impressive portfolios. At the time, I was looking for a development company that could also consult and help us with business ideas. Vault Innovation was able to provide support on the business side as well, and that is what set them apart for me.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $230,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2020 and the project concluded in January 2021.

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

The product launched successfully. There were very few, if any, bugs.  Their strength seems to be in backend development.

How did Vault Innovation perform from a project management standpoint?

We did face a few challenges that delayed our launch date. There were a lot of moving parts on the project, but they remained organized throughout the engagement.

We usually used Slack and Asana to communicate, but I was also able to call, text, or meet with our project manager for lunch.  The project manager was very transparent and he provided a lot of value because he consulted on the business as well.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was impressed with their project management and backend development skills.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They work in an agile environment and we pivoted several times, which impacted our timeline and cost. I’d like it if they had a more concrete roadmap in place, but that takes a lot of time to plan ahead of time. I also learned that nuanced details could impact the timeline as well.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Generally, clients should have their own detailed roadmap of what they want to accomplish. They should really get into the details of the user flows to streamline the process.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of Lost Travel. It’s an adventure travel brand. We organize trips across North America, and we have a software product, Wayward,  that people can use to track and share their adventures. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Vault Innovation?

We developed Wayward as an internal tool initially. It worked in its state, but we wanted to revamp it so that we could make the tool available to people outside our organization.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We essentially rebuilt the software product which is available as a mobile application and web application. It now allows offline tracking and more capabilities for users to create itineraries for their own travels. They also provided design work for the app. 

What is the team composition?

I work with 2–3 people primarily, including the CTO. However, I’ve worked with as many as six people at a time. 

How did you come to work with Vault Innovation?

They actually reached out to me on LinkedIn. Originally, I was planning on hiring a full-time developer to join my in-house team. However, after talking to Vault Innovation, I decided to move forward with them instead. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2020. The app launched in October 2020, but our relationship is still ongoing. 

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

I don’t have any quantitative metrics to share. However, I’m happy with the product. It’s easy to use and has a clean interface – especially compared to the competition.  

How did Vault Innovation perform from a project management standpoint?

We were able to work past any bugs that came up during development. We used Jira to manage the project. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’ve been really easy to work with. Their level of excitement around the product has been great. They proposed a budget, and they stuck to it, which I really appreciated. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

It’s hard for me to say. I’ve enjoyed working with them. There are some natural differences between working with a third-party versus an in-house team. However, I’m happy with the results. I wish I had clearly outlined deadlines and milestones, but I can’t fault them for that. It took longer than expected, but they did a great job. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a clear picture of what you want to achieve and communicate that. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of VoiceOder Solutions. The company provides innovative B2B voice technology solutions for the foodservice industry.

What challenge were you trying to address with Vault Innovation?

We needed to develop a software solution from an initial concept.  This was a completely unique idea that needed to be architected and developed from the bottom up.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have leveraged Vault Innovation as our in-house software team. They have helped to refine the initial concept, architect the product MVP, and build the mobile/voice application. We provided them with our initial flow charts design and important features.  In addition, we required all open-source language development.

What is the team composition?

We work with a team of approximately five people. 

How did you come to work with Vault Innovation?

The Illinois Technology Association referred us to them as a great resource. I evaluated them against several other companies and felt very comfortable with their background and approach.

How much have you invested with them?

We have invested between $75,000–$100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in July 2019 and is still ongoing.

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

Early success metrics include: hitting deadlines, working collaboratively, and the ability to iterate on the product design process.  Their team has consistently lived up to all of the standards I have laid out.

We have received very positive feedback on the concept and software functionality.  We are very pleased with the quality of their work.

How did Vault Innovation perform from a project management standpoint?

They use JIRA to keep track of the different elements of the project, and we schedule phone calls every two weeks to make sure everyone is up to date. It is always very easy to track their progress and make sure we are moving towards our larger goals at all times.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The reason I’ve enjoyed working and continue to work with Vault is their open communication. They are disciplined in documenting what’s going on and the output of everything they do, and they set really accurate expectations upfront in terms of the sprints and the costs associated with each of them. It is always clear the value that we’re getting for their work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’ve done everything I’ve asked to this point, so I don’t really have any room for improvement.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice would be to be thoughtful about what engagement you are looking for them to work on. Do your research upfront so that you can share as much information and give them direction in a collaborative and productive way.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the owner of a subpoena service. We issue subpoenas for records in these industries: medical, bank, school, police, and others. We also issue subpoenas on behalf of lawyers.

What challenge were you trying to address with Vault Innovation?

We initially hired them to perform some development of our website and interactive client portal. In the end, we partnered with them further to continue building the portal.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We needed a client portal that allows lawyers to provide us information on what subpoenas they need issued. Then, it would allow the lawyers to track the status of their subpoenas.

Vault Innovation built this portal from scratch. They had to learn how every step of the subpoena process worked, so it could be properly and legally tracked through the portal. The design of the portal had to take into account the different actors, vendors, and the issues that can arise with the various groups involved in the process.

They built the frontend for the clients and the backend for the administrators, and they made both interact properly. They also built us a mock-up of a sales portal, which was actually the first thing they did for us.

What is the team composition?

There were 3–5 working with us.

How did you come to work with Vault Innovation?

They’re in the same building as us, and I believe we first connected through mutual connections in our building.

How much have you invested with them?

We probably invested somewhere between $10,000–$49,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working in either late 2017 or early 2018 and the project was mostly finished by the fall of 2019, although our relationship is ongoing as they continue to make updates for our site.

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

Amongst the users we’ve demoed the project to, the reaction is nearly universally positive. We’ve had several clients looking to use our service more because of their work.

How did Vault Innovation perform from a project management standpoint

We communicated via email, video conferences, in-person meetings with their design teams, and web meetings with screen sharing. Other members of my team might have met with them more frequently and in other ways.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The amount of time they spent to understand our business before they even started to design anything impressed us. If you just jump in and start trying to design a client portal without understanding the business and the legal side of things, you’re going to have an inferior product. They spent a lot of time with us getting into the weeds and they fully understood the project by the time they began designing.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I have nothing.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Spend the time upfront so they understand your business. I believe people don’t spend enough time explaining their business model. Explain your business model, and you'll get the product you're looking for.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president and CEO of Endoscopy Now. We focus on medical education for professionals in the gastroenterology space. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Vault Innovation?

We had worked with two previous developers but needed a higher-end, professional app than what they had delivered. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed iOS and Android applications using React Native. They assisted us with the design portion. We took about two or three months collaborating to flush out what the app looks like today. Their team also integrated several third-party tools including Opentalk, Mixpanel and Google Analytics.

What is the team composition?

We’ve had two main points of contact: the president and the lead developer. However, there have been an additional three or four people that we’ve interacted with over the course of the projects including a few different project managers. 

How did you come to work with Vault Innovation?

I believe we heard about them through a referral from a friend. We had interviewed three other vendors as well, but we didn’t click with them in the way that we did with the team at Vault Innovation. They understood our company, our budget constraints, and what we were trying to accomplish. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $200,000 with them for this project. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in late 2017 and are still working with them for support and additional updates. 

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

At the beginning of this year, we had about 800 users. Now, we’re at around 32,000 subscribers. We also brought in about $300,000 in revenue. While this can’t be exclusively attributed to Vault Innovation’s work, they’ve certainly had an impact. 

How did Vault Innovation perform from a project management standpoint?

We’ve had some ups and downs with project management, but we are in a good place right now. There have been several project managers that we’ve worked with. Our company is typically more fluid with our management while Vault Innovation likes more structure. 

Overall, we’ve had a strong line of communication with them through weekly phone calls and emails. We also use Slack and Jira. It’s been beneficial for us to move towards having weekly sprints on Fridays and applying a more agile approach. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

One of the most impressive things about their team is how collaborative they are. They listen and can turn things around quickly if there’s a problem. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only issue we’ve had is a bit of misalignment with communication about priorities and project timelines. It’s an evolving process and we’re constantly working to improve. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It’s been very helpful for us to come in with clear requirements and walking through it all ahead of starting the project. It’s important to implement structure as much as possible. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of a tech-enabled amenities company that provides services to the real estate industry.

What challenge were you trying to address with Vault Innovation?

When we initially engaged with Vault Innovation, we sought to create a turnkey technology solution to optimize our team on the street. This team included dog walkers, personal trainers, and others across the United States, and the solution became an app build with Vault Innovation.

What was the scope of their involvement?

While I don’t know which specific languages they used, they worked on the back- and frontend design work and oversaw the initial architecture of the build. They built the app for Android and iOS. They also helped a little with a redesign of our internal website.

What is the team composition?

There were four members of their team.

How did you come to work with Vault Innovation?

A venture capital (VC) we were pitching to referred us to them as they were working in that VC’s incubator lab. The communication and transparency shown by Jeff (Founder & CEO, Vault Innovation) sold us.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started work with them in June 2019, and the work is ongoing. 

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

There’s no user feedback yet, but their team is very engaging and flexible.

How did Vault Innovation perform from a project management standpoint?

There’s always going to be some sort of technical debt in a project like this. But Vault Innovation hit the majority of their deadlines and is great at communicating with us. We mainly communicated over Slack and met 3–4 times in person.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their customer service is extremely well handled. Their communication style and response time earned my applause and is the reason I would recommend them to another company.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not at this time.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be very communicative, and be open with your expectations. 

Please describe your company and your position there.

We produce an appliance for growing food indoors and provide open-sourced outdoor modular farm technology as well. 

For what projects/services did your company hire Vault Innovation ?

Front end website development for our site.

What were your goals for this project?

Develop a user friendly ecommerce website to sell products and subscribe to our consumable subscription service. The website also included a responsive web application to allow our customers to easily update their subscription and monitor their products.

How did you select this vendor?

Networking through Purdue University startup community. They had very competitive pricing and a good portfolio of successful projects.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They designed and developed the front end of our custom website. The website contained a home page, product page, checkout pages, about us page, support page, and a user dashboard interface. Vault also provided graphic design services to make logos and icons for the website.

What was the team composition?

The Vault team included a project manager, website developer, graphic designer who worked with our CTO and lead software developer.

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

We are a startup company using the website to attract investors, corporate partners, and customers. Working with Vault has allowed us to acquire new customers raise additional funds to sustain the company.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management was great. We never had any issues with communication and all tasks during the project were completed in a timely manner.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We were most impressed with Vault's ability to quickly understand our needs and provide a design that clearly correlated with our mission.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There is little room for improvement. More detail on the hourly billing invoice would have been helpful. Overall I was satisfied with the project.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our company builds audit management applications. I'm the founder.

What challenge were you trying to address with Vault Innovation?

We're a new company, and we hired Vault to build our application.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The product is a web app. I went to them with wireframes and specifications for what I wanted to build. They reviewed my specifications, set the scale of the project, and developed an MVP. They took out some of the unnecessary features I wanted and created something I could finish and sell on my budget.

There are workflows and automations on the app that change to fit the users' needs. There is also a file storage feature. The app is built on a Laravel PHP framework.

What is the team composition?

I communicated with their CEO, a project manager, and a team of coders.

How did you come to work with Vault Innovation?

I found them through my attorney. I spoke with a handful of developers, but Vault was the only team that challenged my ideas and made suggestions for improvements. They acted as a partner, which is exactly what I wanted.

How much have you invested with them?

I spent around $50,000 on this project.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in October 2018. The MVP is complete, but we still use them for minor enhancements.

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

We just moved to production and only recently launched. We don't have any metrics to speak of yet, but we hope to have more results within a few months. They turned my wireframes into a functional application that fit my budget. They were involved and interested in getting my business off the ground, and they continue to provide advice.

How did Vault Innovation perform from a project management standpoint?

They're very responsive. Most of our communication is through email, but we had weekly meetings to go over where they were in the process and to answer any questions. Whenever I email them, I usually hear back from them within a couple of hours.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're invested in my success and act as a real partner. As a first-time entrepreneur, their support has been extremely helpful.

Are there any areas they could improve?

In the beginning, the time frames ran a little longer than we expected. It didn't impact anything on my end, but they could be more accurate with their estimated timelines.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They're great partners, but they don't do the end to end testing. Make sure you have a team member to work on QA before the app goes to production.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

At the time of the engagement, I was an entrepreneur with a tech startup.

What challenge were you trying to address with Vault Innovation?

I had an idea for a product, and I engaged Vault Innovation to build a prototype to serve as a proof of concept. I wanted to test a product with some small potential clients to test its viability in the market.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Their responsibility was relatively straightforward. I expected Vault Innovation to build a bare-bones prototype that I could use for client tests.

What is the team composition?

I communicated with Jeffrey (Founder/CEO, Vault Innovation) up until the point that I engaged his team.

How did you come to work with Vault Innovation?

I learned of Vault Innovation through a referral. I had 3–5 meetings with Jeffrey over two months before we came to an agreement.

How much have you invested with them?

Once we agreed to work together, I paid $5,000 upfront. In total, I spent about $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The engagement spanned August–November 2017.

How did your relationship with Vault Innovation evolve?

I stopped the project about a third of the way through because I didn’t believe it was on the right track. Up until that point, they had only assigned some product designers to work with the prototyping tool Axure.

About a year ago, I had become a software developer, and I engaged them to say that I wanted to take on the project and build out the rest on my own. I discovered that they had only used prototyping code generated by the tool. They had made no effort to produce code that was worthy of a testing or production environment.

Ultimately, I decided to engage what I thought would be the target clients, but I never had an actual prototype for them to test. The experience with Vault Innovation ended up being a waste of money.

How did Vault Innovation perform from a project management standpoint?

Their team as a whole lacked the core competencies to serve as a technical lead or project manager.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team at Vault Innovation is likable outside of a professional role. They’re much savvier on the social side, but I wouldn’t trust them with my technology project again.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Vault Innovation should re-examine what their value proposition is because it’s not working with entrepreneurs. They might be able to deliver for more mature companies, but I don’t think they are suited for anyone looking to bootstrap a project or a business.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If future clients have a more robust budget, they might be better off by hiring a full-time employee.