WideFix

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Principal Product Manager of an ecommerce company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Industry-leading ecommerce platform for creators

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Improve the platform's project match rate
• Increase the platform's revenue
• Implement corresponding features to achieve the goals above
• Improve the performance of the platform's core views

SOLUTION

How did you find WideFix?

Other

Why did you select WideFix over others?

High ratings

How many teammates from WideFix were assigned to this project?

1 Employee

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

Help build out a robust marketplace platform that matches our customers with vetted service providers and enables them to transact. Develop the backend for project matching, messaging, profile management, invoicing and admin tools with full test coverage. Improve the performance of core views.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Project match rate was increased from 30% to 51.3% (+102.6% vs goal). Performance of core views saw a 10x improvement.

Revenue improved by 100% (2x)

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

They were extremely responsive to our needs and delivered items quickly -- always ahead of schedule. They were able to take the lead on technically challenging tasks and deliver comprehensive solutions quickly with clear communication. A pleasure to work with.

What was your primary form of communication with WideFix?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

They think holistically about the product while delivering technically sound solutions to the specific challenges at hand today in order to move the project forward. Step by step, tangible progress is made, and the product metrics reflect that. They do a good job of cutting through the noise and containing the inevitable rabbit holes that crop up during development. Quality of both communication and engineering work was excellent.

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

Taking time to proactively propose big-picture solutions to product challenges would have been welcome. But in general, great to work with and exceeded our requirements.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the Technical Delivery Lead for Palladium Digital. Palladium is a London-based consulting company serving private equity owners. I look after all the technical projects at Palladium Digital.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with WideFix?

We had a web development project, and we needed a senior consultant for design and technical upgrades. We needed someone to work on data archiving related to disaster and recovery of the product, and we needed the expertise of WideFix to take the product to the next level in terms of technology upgrades. We also needed WideFix to work on new features like the actual shipping of the product.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

This project is for a set of mature web portals. The technology behind it is React, Ruby on Rails, GraphQL, and PostgreSQL. With a mature project, we needed some tech upgrades in Ruby on Rails, Heroku, and Netlify. We’re continuously enhancing and adding new features to the existing web portal, and we use WideFix for the additions. 

We provided them with one week of onboarding where all the project and technical documentation onboarding was done; documentation details were provided to them. As we go along in proper delivery and implementation, we follow a Scrum methodology where we provide detailed user stories for the developers to work on. 

We also refine the stories; this is where WideFix and other developers have key input and ask questions to enhance the requirements. The user stories are then given to the developers to work on in a sprint. They write code, review each other’s code in peer reviews, and then do local testing in their own development environment. We also have an integration environment internally that is used by developers for testing. 

We test in that environment, and then we have UAT in the staging environment before we deploy it to production. The deployment production is also completed by WideFix and the developers. We support production in terms of operations if there are any issues. Production is monitored by the same team that includes WideFix developers. If there are any issues in production, they’re fixed by that team.

What is the team composition?

When we started working with them, there were four developers and one tester. Towards the end of the year, we tend to have reduced workloads and work with two developers and one tester.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve spent around £60,000 (approximately $71,000 USD) so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in May 2022, and the work is ongoing; we expect the end date to be around July 2023.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

There are no specific metrics. We usually have internal reviews with our teams and all of the people managing the teams. We categorize reviews in three different aspects: their technical skills, their behavior which includes team player attributes as well as interpersonal skills, and their aspirations, meaning what their ambitions are and where we can challenge them and push them to perform even better or get even more from them.

How did WideFix perform from a project management standpoint?

WideFix is very good when it comes to meeting deadlines. Their collaboration under normal circumstances is very good. Under challenging circumstances, they need some support. We use Jira and Confluence for Agile project management.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team from WideFix has authority over their technical expertise in Ruby on Rails. There is one particular person from WideFix who has a unique selling point because he’s published his own digital book on Ruby on Rails and has lots of expertise with it. He's become the senior engineer on the team who is responsible for the overall technical governance, driving the technical and quality improvements, adding new tools, and enhancing the way that code is written in all projects as well as guiding junior team members.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I would say they could be more effective when it comes to team leading or managing difficult team members.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Always give them challenging technical work and they’re very happy. They will produce 150% results.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and product manager of a tech startup called Certifyit. We’re a blockchain-based platform helping small- to mid-sized enterprises collaborate together.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with WideFix?

We’re planning to launch our product this September, but we faced a problem with our payment workflow. We didn’t know how to integrate Stripe smoothly and couldn’t figure out the answers. So, we turned to WideFix.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

WideFix helped us with our Stripe payment integration. They were very efficient in their process because they knew everything that we needed to do. They even helped us navigate Stripe’s support process. Eventually, we were able to resolve our peer-to-peer (P2P) payment issues.

What is the team composition? 

There were two people working on the project.

How did you come to work with WideFix?

I got to know Andrei (Founder) on LinkedIn while trying to figure out who could help me. His profile showed the right proficiencies, and I felt like he was the right person for my company’s needs.

After I wrote him a message, one of my software engineers and I met Andrei for a brief consultation. Not only did he give us some crucial answers about our integration, but he also shared useful decisions about our code. That’s when we decided to bring him on.

How much have you invested with them?

It cost $400 for a three-day consultation.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them in July 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It was their speedy response that stood out. Andrei got back to me on the same day that I contact him, and that was consistent throughout. He would immediately deal with projects and continued to help us for the next two days.

How did WideFix perform from a project management standpoint?

We spoke through LinkedIn and Skype.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We spent two weeks trying to solve this problem when Andrei and his team figured it out in three days. They helped us through the Stripe support process, too, when we weren’t seeing the right answers to our questions.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I have nothing to say. It was perfect.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don’t hesitate to write Andrei. He’s an expert in diverse payment gateways. Whether that’s a subscription model or P2P payments, he knows what to do.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder and CEO of Costa del Home. We have four major products; one being a newspaper, one is a software and we also have two portals in the housing market

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with WideFix?

We needed someone to build our online portal.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We hired them to develop our portal, which is all built on Ruby on Rails. They helped us a lot with the software involved in our business.

I have in-house developers myself, but we gave WideFix the more complicated stuff. Andrei (Founder) is a bit of a genius when it comes to Ruby on Rails.

What is the team composition?

There were about two people working with us from their team.

How did you come to work with WideFix?

I found them on a freelance website originally and decided that they were a good fit based on the expertise they demonstrated in our early conversations.

How much have you invested in them?

So far, I would say the total cost is probably around €70,000 Euros.

What is the status of this engagement?

We have been working with them for two and a half or three years, since around April 2017, and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Before COVID-19, we were growing at roughly 10% every month for the past several years. WideFix did really amazing work on the backend of our software to help enable our growth. We have just over 1,000 businesses using our product.

How did WideFix perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Slack, where all my developers communicate as well. I did meet them in person back in January. We invited them down here with their family to meet us at our offices, and they stayed here for 10 days. It was nice for them to meet us and at the same time have a nice holiday, which helped get our work together off to a good start.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The quality and speed of their work have really stood out. They are very fast.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think so. I am not a messy company, but I consider them Einstein for Ruby on Rails. I have my in-house developers, but I wish I could have them as well, but we are based in Spain and they are in Belarus.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You will be surprised by the quality and the speed that they take. There are no hesitations. I love what they do.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We create enclosures for various businesses and houses. It was a startup, so we were building from the ground up.        

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with WideFix?

We needed them to develop an e-commerce platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

It was a multifaceted platform that included back-office systems, e-commerce, and payments. The system was built on Ruby and they applied some APIs.

What is the team composition?

We had 10 developers and testers.

How did you come to work with WideFix?

I knew them personally. I knew that they were very capable technically.

How much have you invested with them?

It was between $50,000 and $100,000, but we paid on a monthly basis.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project ran from December 2014 to June 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The development was completed in a short period of time. The work was high quality from a UX and architectural perspective. The code was also very good. The solutions were dynamic and sustained with minimal maintenance and oversight.

How did WideFix perform from a project management standpoint?

We had Slack. They were good at following up and determining whether the quality was up to par. We maintained a good relationship.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Every time we had new challenges, we were able to design it and implement it. That gave us the confidence to build the project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

As we started to build, we found ways to improve the code as we added more features This was necessary.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I was working as a CTO in the company during that period and the company worked as an outsourcing company with a lot of different customers

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Our clients were leaving our product because it was unstable, with constant spontaneous bugs, performance issues, and memory leaks.

SOLUTION

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

We discovered WideFix on google.com. Upon investigation of their official website, WideFix.com, we realized that they were the ideal company to address our technical issues.

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

WideFix conducted a thorough analysis of our system and identified areas in need of technical improvements in the code. They provided a detailed plan to address these specific issues. They also created and tracked progress on tickets in Trello, and successfully implemented these changes within the agreed upon deadlines. The project utilized the following technology stack: Ruby on Rails, React, PostgreSQL, and GraphQL.

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

The WideFix team consisted of three individuals: a project manager who also served as the Quality Assurance (QA) lead, and one developer each for the back-end and front-end aspects of the project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

WideFix successfully resolved all of our critical bugs, resulting in a significant improvement in the application's average response time, which dropped from 600 ms to 300 ms. They also identified and fixed a memory leak. The Lighthouse performance score of our application improved from 20 to 95 out of 100, and our domain rating increased from 24 to 35. As a result, customer churn was reduced by 90%. Additionally, we have seen an increase in new customer acquisition by approximately 10% compared to the previous year.

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

WideFix maintained clear, professional, and polite communication throughout the project. They were responsive and provided clear answers to our questions, which instilled confidence in us. Communication was primarily conducted through MS Teams, which included both text and call options.

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

WideFix's team possessed a unique combination of both soft and hard skills, which were evident at the highest level. It is rare to find a company that excels in both areas.

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

While we were impressed with the quality of work and efficiency of the WideFix team, we believe that with more team members they could have completed the project even faster. We look forward to seeing WideFix grow and expand their team, as this will enable them to provide even better service to their clients.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Technical Product Manager

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire WideFix?

Integration Cloud Billing System with Stripe

SOLUTION

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

Integration has been completed

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

1stage — Integration

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

Andrey Koleshko

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

NDA

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Perfect

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

Perfect

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

Everything was perfect