Voypost

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We're a software company building a Marketing tech SaaS solution, here I am the CTO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed to speed up our development and hired Voypost to add extra people to our back-end team.

SOLUTION

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

Through our network we came in contact with Voypost, the fact that they had a structure with senior developers joining the architecture discussion together with senior/medior developers for the hands-on work was a great advantage for us as a starting company.

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

They delivered next to architecture designs, implementations of multiple back-end services in NestJS a Typescript API framework.

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

A project manager and a back end developer were our main point of contact. A software architect also joint the discussion when required.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

After we started working with Voypost production of new features increased rapidly.

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

We communicated mostly through slack. While Voypost easily integrated with our project management in Slack.

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

The combination of different levels of software engineers was really useful to us.

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

None.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m currently the head of product, design, and engineering for AFK Agency Ireland. We build digital products and experiences for large blue-chip companies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Voypost?

We had a 12-week turnaround for a large digital project and we were trying to increase our development capacity within a very short amount of time.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Voypost is providing us with web design and development, and software development. In addition, they’re building a design system from the bottom up, along with all the components needed to power a headless CMS. TypeScript and React are the technologies used for the development. We also provided all of the intel and the framework to work with.

Our project is one of those projects that never finishes so we’re still working together.

What is the team composition?

We work with two developers and a QA from their side and they’re being overseen by their lead engineer.

How did you come to work with Voypost?

We came across their profile on GitHub.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve invested somewhere between $30,000–$50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The ongoing partnership started in December 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project hasn’t launched yet, but Voypost is able to surpass the quality of what the client has at the moment, so the feedback from the client has been positive.

How did Voypost perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re quite efficient in terms of project management. They do daily standups and they like to work knowing that they have the next two weeks planned out. One of their strengths is estimating the amount of work and being efficient in delivering them.

We do two Google Meet meetings a week, and daily Slack updates. We have a joint channel on Slack and we chat there all the time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Finding actual competent developers is a lot harder than most people think, and Voypost really cares about quality.

We initially gave them a development challenge and they were able to put together a solution for a problem that most people get wrong. I was very impressed because they turned it around in about a day and I praised their competency. Once we decided to engage with them, they started doing really well into our existing process. They took it quite seriously and really cared about the quality before we even had a look at everything.

What they also do nicely is they don’t just give us developers, they complement that with project management and QA resources.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t really have that many things that I wasn’t happy with. They swapped a couple of team members from the project in the beginning, which I thought was a weakness at the time, but it turned out to be the right decision. It was just a slight miscommunication at the start, but it was done for the right reasons.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to have open lines of communication, be transparent, and be open to collaboration. The first couple of weeks is always difficult in terms of working with a new supplier, but if you open yourself up to them quickly, it will be much more beneficial.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Founder and CEO, We are a San Francisco based startup in the intersection of Retail, eCommerce and environmental space.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We wanted to develop an MVP that will hep us connect eco-conscious brands with zero-waste stores, big-box retailers and independent retailers. We started in the health and beauty space. Our goal was to build a super sleep, simple and easy to navigate system and to test waters to see if users sign up and how functional is it as a system.

SOLUTION

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

We found them on upwork, along with 4 other vendors. In our evaluation process one of our primary asks was for a partner who would deliver high-quality work in a reliable and collaborative manner. What made us go with Voypost was the attention to detail and responsiveness they showed even at the very initial stage, to understand project requirements. They asked the right questions and even helped us solve a few unsolved areas when thinking about our user experience and features.

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

They designed and developed a Java-based application that's hosted on Firebase.

1. Collaborative scoping: We used airtable to map our every single detail of the requirement from the UI Design.
2. Once that was cleared, the Voypost team moved on to create UI components that mirrored our design to perfection
3. They divided the project into 4 milestones and moved in stages to complete every single one of them. Every week the progress was shared with the entire team.
4. UAT: Voypost team is very precise with UAT and they use monday.com to check off every box. Any incomplete item or a bug is noted immediately as unresolved and the team completes it within the next 24 hours.

Product Features:

• Brand Dashboard to show the brand their profile
• Product Dashboard: All the product brochures created by brands are displayed here
• Questionnaire: Series of questions that brands click and complete to build their profile
• Payment interface: Integration with Stripe to allow users to pay once they want to download a PDF version of their product brochure
• Chrome Extension: Developing a chrome extension that allows category managers to save products on their wishlist and initiate conversation with those brands later.

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

5 People from the Vendor's team worked with us, below are their positions: Maria - COO (previously a PM & QA on Correlate) Pavel - Product Manager & QA Nazar - Team Lead, managing the devs Oleh and Natalia are devs Nikita - CTO & Architect

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were able to launch the solution right on time. And the team performed so well we are now continuing to work with them to develop the retailer interface also.

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

The project management was exceptional. The Voypost team was precisely on time for all of the deliverables and sometimes delivering a lot earlier. We used Slack for all communication.

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

It is their exceptional collaboration internally and externally with us that's truly unique. We never found that things were lost in translation. We never had any lag or delays in communicating changes or development milestones. I would highly recommend the Voypost team if you are looking for exceptional quality of code and stellar communication skills.

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

None.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our company provides a platform for realtors, buyers, sellers, and lenders to connect. RealGenius provides realtors and lenders with tools to help buyers and sellers make financially savvy decisions when committing to the purchase or sell their homes. I'm a product management consultant.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed to digitalized tools we have provided to realtors and lenders for years. Our goal was to develop an MVP, including basic calculations required to qualify a buyer before the house searching begins.

SOLUTION

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

They were chosen based on these considerations:

• The attention to detail when discussing the requirements
• The responsiveness of the team and professionalism
• The technical recommendations and approach selected by the team

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

Their work involved:

• Developing a browser-based application with backend and frontend including the following features:

1.  Home screen
2. User account creation and login
3. Customer card creation
4. A financial questionnaire, calculations and rendering the results of these

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

The project manager & architect directly coordinated with us. But the team also involved firebase engineers and QA.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The results included:

• High quality MVP
• Flexibility to review and adjust when possible (this was really important, given the fact that our requirements, in terms of UI, were still evolving)
• Responsiveness of the team
• Creative thinking to address challenges as we went through the development cycle

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

They were open, agile, transparent, driven by the commitment to provide a high-quality end product. Super patient when it comes to deal with incomplete or ambiguous requirements & different timezones.

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

The willingness to find creative ways to achieve the desired requirements. The understanding of the different tech stack options we could have applied to develop our MVP & definitely the friendliness and patience the team had when dealing with indecisive founder and various stakeholders.

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

None that I can think of. The team was professional, took an advisory role which was really needed in our case & helped us navigate the very first phase of what we hope will be a product that helps realtors, buyers, sellers, and lenders connect and complete successful real estate transactions.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our company makes SaaS solutions for the enterprise with the ultimate goal to help them better understand their people in a frictionless matter.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Voypost?

We wanted to explore a new business opportunity that our core-team didn't have time for to develop. To validate the MVP we had to go from idea shipping to users <4 weeks. The challenge was to develop a lightweight and frictionless way to understand employees without bothering them.

This required us to build a SaaS application with analytics and a discussion platform to manage the responses, as well as a dashboard for users, a chrome extension, and a landing page.

The Voypost team helped us to scope out and develop a large part of the back-end while we did a design sprint, and from there we were able to quickly develop the front-end.

What were your goals for this project?

It needed to be built for the web, be mobile responsive, and frictionless for users in the browser through a chrome extension. The initial MVP was all about speed to deliver, but as we continued our partnership, the product was built to have flexibility and reliability in mind.

It had to be able to scale smoothly without having to redo the entire architecture.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Because the project was critical to delivering fast in order to validate the idea, we wanted to work with a team that knew how to launch products quickly. Voypost and the team had the experience of startups themselves, and it helped us to ship in weeks vs months for the first version.

It really helped us reduce the scope dramatically, and collaborate closely as if they were fully part of the team and not act like typical agencies.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They helped us to through ideation face with how to make a stable back-end infrastructure that would scale enough for the initial MVP, yet lightweight to build within a few weeks.

As we completed our own design sprint, they plugged into the process smoothly and scoped out in detail the cost and timeline, which really helped us greatly to prioritize and cut out non-essential solutions. They helped build the back-end, front-end, and performance management throughout the project, and we continued the collaboration across a few more releases.

Also, their project management to help translate the requests and needs to the developers and the detailed issue management was very smooth. They also supported us greatly with QA testing.

What was the team composition?

We had a core team of 3 developers constantly, with one PM to help coordinate all the efforts. The lead architect and the PM took care of all the admin, so we could really work smoothly together. Depending on the timeline and the needs to ship before a certain timeline, we were able to quickly add up to 8 developers to make sure the deadline remained sacred.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The impact was huge for us. With their services, we were able to make them a natural extension of our own team, which made it a super smooth experience. It helped us pursue a new opportunity and ship a product in weeks, that we were previously not able to do.

The regular reviews on both sides, helped us sharpen our internal processes tremendously to make sure we could always ship big updates fast to our users. It really helped us rethink how to ship high-quality products fast.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The deadline was sacred to the Project Manager, she did an incredible job to

1. deal with our continuous request, and
2. to make sure the needs were always properly translated to all the engineers.

We never had to worry about scaling up the team when it was needed, the PM made sure that everything went super smooth, and also challenged us when needed to cut down on scope and requirements to make sure we made the deadline to the users.

What I was most impressed by was the hungriness to learn from our shared retrospectives and instantly make changes for the future.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The team really cared about the end-result and the deadline was sacred to everyone. They knew how important it was to ship a high-quality product to users and showed in every step they cared. Typical agencies tend to care about billing and protecting their hours. With this team, it was like the A-players in our own team.

If necessary they worked entire weeks 14 hours per day to make sure it was shipped on-time when the promise was made. Typical agencies or freelancers think it's 5 or 6 pm, this is what I got done, that's what you'll have. This was the opposite, I would hire them full-time as employees without second-guessing. They always kept their promises.

Are there any areas for improvement?

When working with startups that are in ideation face, or explore a new opportunity, things can be a bit messy, and as you learn new things as it comes alive, it requires sometimes the flexibility to go outside the scope, and re-ass how to best make impact for the users, and refactor the scope.

You could ask the client to say "If we say Yes to this, what can we say No to? Perhaps that will help the sparring to come to the best outcome without losing time.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Dir. of Global Operations of INTERNATIONAL COLLEGE OF DENTISTS

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

The International College of Dentists honors the world's leading dentists and supports humanitarian and educational oral health initiatives in under-served communities globally.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Re-design of new website

SOLUTION

How did you find Voypost?

Online Search

Why did you select Voypost over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget

How many teammates from Voypost were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

re-design the ICD website with modern, user-friendly elements

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Design is modern, clean and representative of the ICD brand 
Design elements are minimal but memorable 
Design flows and is consistent throughout website pages

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

Very organized project management. They scheduled regular check-in calls and followed up on each step thoroughly. The designer asked questions when she wasn't sure and was very responsive throughout the entire process. Communication was generally open and easy with the Voypost team.

What was your primary form of communication with Voypost?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Their organizational structure and how supportive each team member was within their role working with us.

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

No

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CTO of PetitChefs

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Online cooking classes for children of ages 6-12

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Develop MVP for application based on provided design
• Run maintenance and immediate improvements within the first months of deployment

SOLUTION

How did you find Voypost?

Referral

Why did you select Voypost over others?

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

How many teammates from Voypost were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

The company was commissioned to provide comprehensive software development services, aiming to transform a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) of my application into a fully functional, deployable software solution. The project involved meticulously translating design specifications into robust, reliable code, ensuring seamless functionality that closely mirrored the initial design elements. 

Key deliverables encompassed the development of the entire software infrastructure, deployment to a production environment, and setting up necessary monitoring mechanisms to ensure its continuous optimal performance. Post-deployment, they were also tasked with periodic enhancements to the application, ensuring it remained up-to-date and capable of delivering superior user experiences.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project outcomes effectively underscored the progress and success of the collaboration. The software development was completed punctually within the stipulated timeframe, adhering to the budget and human resource parameters established in our initial discussions. 

The team's commitment to timely and consistent communication, through daily and weekly interactions, greatly enriched our working relationship, allowing for swift transition into the production phase. Furthermore, the project experienced no notable delays, validating the team's operational efficiency and their mastery in navigating project constraints.

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

The project management approach deployed by Voypost underwent a couple of transitions, but ultimately culminated in an effective partnership with a remarkable project manager, Oleksandra. Her role was crucial to the product management front, demonstrating exemplary communication skills, serving as a proficient liaison between our team and theirs, and ensuring complete alignment among all stakeholders. 

Oleksandra was diligent in risk assessment, proactively addressing potential issues to prevent unexpected outcomes or project delays. Her steadfast commitment to excellence played a significant role in achieving high-quality final product delivery.

What was your primary form of communication with Voypost?

Virtual Meeting

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

What truly sets this company apart is their exceptional blend of transparent communication skills and sound business practices. They excel at conveying methodologies, timelines, budgets, and all other pertinent project details in a calming, reassuring manner that fosters confidence in their abilities.

Furthermore, their commitment to continuous communication and routine follow-ups adds another layer of reassurance. They immerse themselves deeply in every project, an approach which showcases their dedication and makes them a trusted and valued partner for our business. Their unique approach to client engagement and project management underscores their standout performance in the field.

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

Our overall experience with Voypost was highly satisfactory and we would unquestionably select them for future projects, or refer them to our partners.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are an online prize competition start-up. I am the founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Voypost to produce an MVP for testing and a website. Our goals were to build a quality product at a cost effective price and test the appetite for such an offering to the general public.

SOLUTION

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

We used a freelancer market place platform to shortlist a number of different contractors and the deciding factors were technical proficiency first with an eye on cost efficiency.

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

The scope itself included web development for a real time quiz type browser game with enhanced security. The team was also responsible for project work plan, which was a key deliverable during planning phase. While the execution phase was being provided, the reports were also prepared with detailed feedback.

That was an important key deliverable during execution phase as well. In terms of technology, React, Nodejs, Firebase were used for our project.

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

The team was composed of two developers. QA and PM were also engaged from their side. In terms of technical guidance, a Tech Lead was also involved in the project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Each element of the project was broken down into easily manageable tasks which were each given a timeline to be delievered where we were given the opportunity to thoroughly test before moving on to the next task. We found this to be an extremely efficient way to work.

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

Initially we met with the CEO who gave us the confidence that the technical ability filtered through the organisation. We met with project manager who oversaw the day to day management and we communicated through Slack where any real time issues were communicated. Updates and targets were communicated through Monday board

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

We found their communication skills impressive, their use of Slack and other communication/management tools made it easy to trace our steps and track the progress of the project. Voypost's attention to detail and accomodating nature were very good.

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

There were no areas that needed any discernable improvement and the team enjoyed working with Voypost.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CTO of a startup called Slai. We enable to developers to rapidly build and deploy machine learning models.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired them to do an extensive redesign of our website / dashboard.

SOLUTION

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

My co-founder found them online (I believe through upwork). We were looking for an affordable team that could help us ship the first version of the project before we hired full time engineers.

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

Most of the work was React/Typescript frontend development.

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

Quite a few, maybe 6. Project manager, software developers, etc.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The goals were all met in a very timely fashion. The quality of work was pretty good, but we did have to refactor a few things down the line.

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

Great communication, frequent updates over slack, overall very pleasant to work with.

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

They were extremely affordable and a solid company for the stage we were at. Super nice people too.

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

I think the main thing that could be improved would just be the code quality. It wasn't bad, but we've since hired full time employees and they've said that a few things needed to be refactored quite a bit.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Head of Product

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Voypost?

We had customers requesting a simple dashboard for one of our an existing products.

What were your goals for this project?

• Deliver a quick prototype that delivers value to our customers.
• Potentially act as a foundation for a larger product.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Found them through Upwork, where they were highly rated. Their professionalism made it an easy decision.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The project was a prototype dashboard using React and Firebase. The work required integration into an existing product we've built internally.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Code quality was good for a prototype, and ensured we could iterate quickly with our own customers. There was some scope change during the project, and this was dealt with well.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Before accepting the job, Nikita had made a very clear breakdown of stories and tasks, with an estimate for each. It ensured alignment and transparency, and was a great way to start the project.

Good communication was vital, and Nikita et al were super responsive and very specific. Changes needed on our end were clearly specified to our engineer. Issues were dealt with rapidly.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Structured communication

Are there any areas for improvement?

-