Visuality

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of product engineering for StructionSite, a SaaS company. Our customers are in the construction industry, and we build web and mobile app solutions for them. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Visuality?

We contacted Visuality when we had a major project. The deadline was coming up on our project roadmap and we didn’t have enough staff; we couldn’t hire quickly enough to staff the project. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

This was a full stack web software development project with Ruby on Rails in the backend and user-interactive components built on JavaScript and React as the library for the UI. The Visuality team was an expert in these technologies, so they provided us with a complete team that could deliver our requirements. They did everything from organizing the project to building and designing it. 

In terms of features and functionality, the software had integrations with various cloud storage systems and APIs, such as Google Drive, DropBox, and OneDrive. It was also integrated with other systems specific to the construction industry. The software essentially integrated all of those with our product so that if our users wanted to export or import files from any of those systems, then the program can make it happen. 

What is the team composition?

They assigned a project manager and a designer to the project. Apart from them, we collaborated with their COO, who handled the business side of things. Meanwhile, their CTO helped with selecting developers for the project based on our requirements. He did a preliminary consultation with us and made recommendations about the improvements they could do to make the project go more smoothly.

How did you come to work with Visuality?

I contacted a few agencies, and Visuality was one of them. I was most impressed with their proposal on how to complete this project. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $40,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

Our partnership lasted from May–September 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We measured success through milestone completion. We created a three-month roadmap and worked against deadlines. Our team set milestones for components that would be delivered, integrated, and tested at each point. Visuality consistently delivered. 

The team was productive each week, and if there were any setbacks, they communicated about them through regular calls. They were truly communicative in asking questions. 

How did Visuality perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management was excellent. The project manager assigned to us was an expert in Jira. It was nice to see everything so well-organized and laid out. Apart from Jira, we used Figma as our visual tool. To communicate, we used Google Meet and emails. Their team also joined our Slack channel, which was truly helpful. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Visuality’s communication, organization, and speed were impressive. Everything from discovery and project scoping to delivery was fast. Other agencies would struggle on staffing up quickly, but Visuality was able to deliver for us fast. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there weren’t any. They met all high marks when it came to the purpose of our engagement, which was to have an autonomous team working against our deadline. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Visuality shines the most when working on a project that needs an autonomous team instead of augmenting an existing staff. They’re the best when it comes to completing projects end to end. As a result, delegating the project to Visuality and letting them form a development team to build it is the recipe for success when working with them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Hubbado provide a complete online solution for finding and managing contractors, including the contracts, timesheets, invoicing and payments. I am a co-founder, and the CTO, heading up our technical team.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Our product undergoes continual improvement, but finding good engineers to help us with the development has been a constant challenge.

SOLUTION

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

We approached several other vendors, but none of them were able to provide us with the quality of the engineers that Visuality has provided.

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

Our current scope of work is to re-implement our timesheets and invoicing system using event-based technologies (which function similar to an accounting ledger). The key deliverables are a system that can handle all the invoicing, when retrospective changes to rates and and timesheets are made. We work primarily with Ruby and Eventide.

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

We have worked with three full-time, full-stack developers, with their primary focus on the backend technology. Whilst experience levels can differ we try to keep the team structure relatively flat, and the engineers aware of the full scope of the architecture and choices.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Improved, more flexible timesheet and invoicing systems have two key benefits for us: The automation allows us to scale the business without hiring more admin staff, and it simplifies the lives of our clients who benefit from the speed, and correct results in often challenging billing scenarios.

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

We run a Kansan system, without sprints, where we try to limit the amount of work in progress at anyone time, and try to limit the cycle time of features. We co-ordinate via Slack, Kaiten (Kaiten.io) and GitHub

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

Their ability to source good, experienced, and hardworking engineers is amazing.

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

Communication with the boarder (non-engineering) parts of the business has sometime lapsed, but in truth that problem lies more with us than them, as we have been extremely busy. We should work to decide on communication channels that are more timely for all of us.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of engineering at a financial services company that is a leading invoice funding provider in North America.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Visuality?

We had a spiking budget, and I was trying to find experienced Ruby on Rails developers to augment our team — we wanted the ability to ramp up or down, depending on the budget.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had one person on board and got them familiar with our development environment. We then gave them some initial tasks. We talked to them about getting QAs and DevOps teammates, but we could only find good software engineers.

Visuality does all their own hiring and then we just do a vetting just to see if the candidate is a fit for our team — we look to see if they have the strong skill set that we are expecting for our team.

What is the team composition?

We work with two Ruby on Rails developers.

How did you come to work with Visuality?

I believe we found them through Clutch. I was interested in working with a slightly smaller development shop and I spoke to over 10 companies. I then narrowed it down to two companies from there.

I was looking for high-quality Ruby on Rails developers and Visuality was one of the ones that showed up. We also wanted to make sure they fit within our price range. I read some reviews and then I reached out and met with their business development team as well as their founders. 

Once they passed that stage, we interviewed their senior engineers to make sure that the quality they were claiming existed. 

How much have you invested in them?

We have spent over $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in February 2021 and our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We got good quality candidates who have been with us for a while and there have been no challenges with them. They provide strong Ruby on Rails developers.

We wanted a long-term partner with a smaller boutique company so that we could get better attention and partner up more easily — Visuality provides that range for us. They have closer to 10 employees than tens of thousands, which we like. 

How did Visuality perform from a project management standpoint?

We manage the project ourselves but their team has been able to deliver within our timelines. We have Slack groups together and they participate in all of our regular development meetings through Google Meet.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s impressive that the time zones work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They are a little more expensive, so they could be cheaper. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Visuality is good for staff augmentation projects. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am CEO of Software company providing DXP platform for big brands with full support around it operating on 92 markets.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Visuality?

Our company was growing fast with series of Project Management issues. We have faced series of problems in our workflows and delivery.

Having help from Visuality we were able to establish new Project Management workflows and train our Project Managers bringing them to the higher levels. One additional part of project was migrating Jira and existing workflows from Jira Server to jira cloud.

SOLUTION

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

We knew them from industry events. Their set of skills is well known in the developers community so we knew they can guarantee us very high level of skills we required for this project.

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

It was multi stage project. We have started of validating our current flows and gaps in our skill sets inside our team. It required a lot of workshops and understanding our processes and also specifics of work we do. The next step was to agree together on scope of detailed work and timeline for it.

Series of workshops and trainings were performed by Visuality All was summarised with documentation and feedback for our Management. We have also monitored progress and results achieved. Visuality was also keen enough to help us set a path for future own improvements.

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

We had contact with their Key Account but project was done by 2 Senior Project Managers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Project has finished with great result. We have improved our team delivery by 30%. We were also able to improve developers satisfaction.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

All according to the schedule with very good cooperation.

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

I am impressed with their set of skills, seniority, and technical background.

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

All great.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of a company that’s developing a marketing email automation software. We’re targeting e-commerce platforms like Shopify and Lightspeed.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Visuality?

We’d been in business for two years and need more development power to work on client-requested features.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I had an initial call with Visuality’s CTO and CEO. The CTO did a complete run-through of our codebase to determine what our status was and what we needed. Then, they assigned us the two programmers.

Visuality has helped us develop a lot of the tools we’re putting online for our customers. Most of the work is backend Ruby on Rails development, along with some frontend work.

What is the team composition?

They’re providing two full-time senior programmers, which are very hard to find. A project manager has overseen everything from the beginning.

How did you come to work with Visuality?

I believe I found them on Clutch; I’d known about them before that but Visuality’s reviews were wildly good. There are only a few options out there for Ruby on Rails development, and Visuality is one of the best. The communication in the beginning was quick, which isn’t something we necessarily expected from an outsourcing company.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost so far is around €100,000 (approximately $119,000 USD). 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Visuality in January 2021, and it’s ongoing. The contract ends at the beginning of August 2021. It’s nothing to do with Visuality; we want to have programmers inside the company.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

There are a lot of possible metrics to use in software development, but I mostly monitor how well Visuality thinks, how much energy they give us, what our overall working experience is, and, of course, how good the quality is.

How did Visuality perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Gitlab to manage all issues, as well as Kanban boards. Visuality is communicative. We have daily standups with the programmers. The project manager helps us streamline our Gitlab boards and feature planning: what we can deliver this month, what we can deliver next month, and so on.

Having a project manager for our two developers was a bit of overkill in the long term, which is why we eliminated that position four months in. Visuality was very understanding in this regard. I can totally see the benefit of having a project manager on a bigger collaboration, however. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s their communication skills. They’re also very nice people. I told them at the beginning of this week that we’d be stopping the collaboration, and they were completely supportive and understanding. I’d trust them again with our project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I would’ve liked to be given a few options of programmers to see which one was the best fit. We didn’t have a choice in the programmers we got, but I know that they didn’t have anyone available when we had the first call, so they had to shuffle people around to make room for us.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of Myrmica, a small-to-mid-sized software development company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Visuality?

We hired them in regard to a development project. We were automating a web banking application. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’d done some small projects with them in the past, but this one was pretty big for us, relatively speaking. It all started with a discussion with their CEO about what they’d be doing and how they’d approach the project. From that moment, we presented our business needs to their CTO, in a very general scope covering our goals and requirements. The business aspect was also very valuable for us.

We were then connected with a developer, with whom we went into deep details on how we wanted the app to behave and what needed to be done on our end.

The application needed to automate certain human interventions, including logging in, inputting information, and making configurations. All data insertion, acceptance, and management would be automated. The only human intervention would be at the level of confirmation, thus reducing 20 clicks to two.

What is the team composition?

Mariusz (CTO) was our main point of contact, along with the main developer.

How did you come to work with Visuality?

We were referred to them by a friend a long time ago. We’ve outsourced a lot of projects to Visuality, and we get along well.

How much have you invested with them?

The overall cost of the projects we’ve finished so far is $35,000–$40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The first contract with them started around September 2020, and we have some ongoing projects with Visuality at the moment.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

What I like most about them is the clearness and transparency of communication. We never dwell on unnecessary steps, and I’ve always been provided the right info and directed to the right person. 

I like how Visuality schedules and interacts with their clients, without additional steps to be taken from their or our side. The time management, scheduling, and directing to the right person — either in regard to billing, migrating, or development — are really good.

The ranges they quoted me were super accurate. It took a while to provide the quote, but it was very accurate and straight to the point.

How did Visuality perform from a project management standpoint?

I like the fact that there’s no time spent with unnecessary calls, especially with project managers. We can explain to them from the beginning what we want to achieve, how it’ll work, and what our milestones are, and Visuality will deliver. 

They can sort out development issues on their side, and they come back to us with the complete solution. Visuality’s developers are extremely sharp in terms of what they can deliver, and they’re clear about what can and can’t be done with our solutions. It’s important that they know the limitations of what we’re working with, so that we don’t waste time.

They offer tools like Slack and Jira, but this project was managed through email and video calls. We had a long call with them in the beginning, and they took care about the development after that. They kept us informed about the progress.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’d always come across companies that talked a lot without actually doing, that would want to involve project managers, additional developers, and additional QA testers, who were unnecessary. I really appreciate that Visuality provides me feedback that matches one hundred percent with my expectations, and they don’t assign unnecessary resources to projects. 

They’re direct and accurate with communication, and I value that a lot. They put the right people on the right projects. I’m not spending additional time talking to 4–5 developers from their side, without any results.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any advice for them as of now. I couldn’t be happier with Visuality, and I’m looking forward to doing new projects with them. That’s the best feedback I could give.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

If the client is transparent and accurate, they will receive the same from Visuality. They’re honest about what they can do, and they can point the project to the right person.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a product lead in a startup on its mission to move old-fashioned pen & paper scheduling processes to the cloud.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed to quickly move our product from the bootstrapped version into a soli and scalable solution both from the architecture and the value prop level.

We were looking for someone who would develop the whole suite of web and mobile solutions based on high-level assumptions and strategies. Experienced and flexible dev team with a focus on solving business challenges was crucial for us at the early stage of the company.

SOLUTION

How did you select Visuality and what were the deciding factors?

We found them on Clutch :) Read the reviews, validated some of them, and after a couple of calls with guys, we knew it was worth a shot. We were looking for a long term lock-in, so great reviews carried more weight than the price - but I cannot say it was not a part of the final decision on shortlisted dev boutiques.

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

We brought the whole backlog of ideas and features for the web and mobile versions of the final product. Visuality folks helped us a lot in the most crucial phase being the decision on what to do next and why.

Guys are super outcome-oriented with a result-driven approach, which was super essential at the early stage. Then we jumped into the development of the next phases of our web based app - back then mostly in RoR and React.

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

Within the project time-box we've worked with around 8 people being designers, backed and frontend engineers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

As it was the only team we had back then, they delivered multiple features across the entire product suite. All of them well designed, executed and deployed to production. It all helped us taking the product to the next level, so I must say - they've done a great work!

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

We run everything based on a Scrum framework, nicely adjusted to our needs and expectations. We've been using multiple tools and frameworks to plan the work properly, starting with event stormings, through groomings and plannings towards execution with 2-weeks cycles. I would say - well-oiled machine.

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

Their coding skills were as expected base don reviews, but what had the biggest impact on the project was their "start with WHY" approach. They were not just task-doers, which happens pretty often with the offshore companies. Challenging our ideas and plans, looking for the greatest value across the backlog items pushed us quicker than anything. Exceptional job.

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

Hmmm... maybe they should have pushed more strongly for more capacity in dev team to speed things up. Other than that I cannot think of anything major to improve.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

At the time of cooperation with Visuality I was a project manager in Raiffeisen Leasing and was partially responsible for selecting the vendor and overseeing the process of implementing a new system for our company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Visuality to create a system that would allow us to showcase and manage pst-leasing equipment inside our company.

SOLUTION

How did you select Visuality and what were the deciding factors?

We knew Visuality before but what really closed the deal was their attention to detail and very serious attitude towards the project's success. They were always available to answer any question in the process of vendor selection which stood out from the crowd. They offered a hands-on individual approach instead of generic one which we received from many others.

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

The project was started from scratch. So at first we organised a few meetings to describe the idea and go through some specific requirements (as we are a regulated company). What came next were the initial mockups that confirmed if we understand each other.

Once they were accepted Visuality started working on design & backend at the same time to speed up the works. Once the product was completed they also offered support in implementing it into our processes. Technologies used were RubyOnRails on the backend and javascript/css on the frontend obviously.

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

We had a dedicated team of two backend and one fronted engineer. The designers were available upon request, also helping us with some marketing materials.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Because of our cooperation with Visuality we got exactly what we needed - a reliable, working product delivered pretty much on time. It allowed us to increase our sales in that area and do marketing actions which increased the brand awareness in that area (pst-leasing).

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

We cannot think of a simple thing that could’ve been better. Communication was smooth and their dedication was as good as the one they showed in the vendor-selection process. We used JIRA for managing the backlog and the meetings were mostly face-2-face, with some small exception of occasionall calls.

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

Reliability and dedication. It’s not often to find a company that cares so much about the product that they do not own themselves. The success of the system we created belonged to our cooperation!

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

As mentioned before the timeline of the project could’ve been a bit better, but can’t complain, we received everything we wanted with just a slight delay that was acceptable.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the CEO of Spacelift.io. Spacelift lets you manage cloud infrastructure better. It automates manual work and compliance, and lets your team focus on development that matters.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Visuality to bootstrap and at a later stage extend our team in both backend development (Go, AWS) as well as frontend (React, Apollo) tasks.

SOLUTION

How did you select Visuality and what were the deciding factors?

I knew the Visuality team and leadership socially and recognised them as a quality-oriented bunch. I like their flexibility, proactive approach and the fact that they actually care about my business goals.

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

We started with an existing codebase written mostly by myself. Visuality took care of adding new features on the backend (billing, third party integrations) and cleaning up the frontend for which I never had the heart nor skill.

Together we’ve gone from a proof of concept to a product we can show to customers.

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

At first we started with a part-time frontend engineer and later we added two backend engineers skilled in Go.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

As mentioned earlier thanks to our cooperation we were able to move more quickly and ship a fully functional product.

At an early stage we were able to focus our attention on the product rather than on recruiting. Their flexibility and hands-on approach helped us a lot there.

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

The project management was our responsibility. When it comes to communication and onboarding, it was very effective, especially in the beginning when we had to pass a lot of knowledge onto Visuality’s engineers.

Because we’re located in the same city as most of Visuality developers we were able to work together in a physical sense, too. Re: communication tooling, we pretty much use the same things as they do - Slack, GitHub, Trello etc, so that was not an issue.

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

If i’d have to choose one thing I’d say it’s the quality. If I could add another thing it would be true appreciation of the business side of the project.

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

Can’t really say much in here. I got everything I asked for and even got something extra, so I’d just say - keep up the good work.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Lateral Link, a legal recruiting firm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Visuality?

We were having a poor experience with another dev team; our app’s code was outdated, and there was downtime with our CRM, all of which made it difficult for our recruiters to work efficiently.

Our code was a bit outdated, so we wanted to modernize it by implementing new solutions and building new features.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started off with a code audit. Visuality suggested that our app should be modernized and developed further. They also looked into improving its security. 

On the frontend side of the platform, we had used old JavaScript libraries. Visuality modernized that and made it more reliable. They extended the solution with the React framework, which allowed us to implement existing features in a better way. Their team also improved the CRM’s UI for our recruiters to recruit more efficiently. We didn’t have valid documentation, and Visuality put that in. We didn’t have a lot of testing before, so Visuality used Docker for automated testing.

What is the team composition?

They put a team of five devs and one project manager on our project. There are some rotations here and there.

How did you come to work with Visuality?

One of my database colleagues found them. They may have initially heard about Visuality through Clutch. We put an RFP out.

How much have you invested with them?

We pay about $15,000 a month. 

What is the status of this engagement?

Our work together about a year-and-a-half ago, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

From the user perspective for my employees, they log in, and it not only works, but it’s also quicker. The site isn’t crashing anymore, and the application now has a clean and readable frontend. In the long-term, this will enable us to move the CRM that we built for our team into a SaaS product. I think we’re in the position to have a fully documented API that others can access down the line, so Visuality has positioned me to go in a new direction, in addition to what I’m currently doing. 

Our previous app was lacking in performance and stability, and Visuality improved that. They were very thorough; they found issues and fixed them, so they’re happy with where we are now. They’re improving the UI to really dive into the details of the data that we’re crunching to surface the candidate. They also bring creativity and suggestions. They pretty much rewrote and revamped the whole application, and going forward, they’re bringing suggestions in different areas, like machine learning and AI.

How did Visuality perform from a project management standpoint?

Their ability to meet deadlines and communicate is one of the more impressive things they do. The project manager communicates ahead of time and provides potential ranges of what each individual task is going to cost based on time. They stick to their estimates and get ahead of surprises. They use Jira and Slack for project management.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Strong communication and creativity, coupled with competence and accountability, set Visuality apart.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The time zone can be a challenge. They’re based in Warsaw, and we’re in Los Angeles. It hasn’t caused a delay, but there are challenges that come with having a partner in a different place.

Any advice for potential customers?

I would recommend working with them. They’re very competent, and I feel the value that I’m receiving for the skillset that they’re providing is attractive as well.