ZUZEX

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a sports odds data provider. People can subscribe to us through our API, and we offer a UI that displays the information to users. I’m the president of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ZUZEX?

Our company is fairly new, and we wanted to include more information. We needed to outsource in order to bridge that gap.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They worked on the front- and backend components of our website. That included a redesign of the overall site that made the interface appear more modern. They were also responsible for correcting our issues with our graphical features. 

What is the team composition?

Our liaison was our project manager. I believe there were 2–3 additional resources working on our account.

How did you come to work with ZUZEX?

My business partner had previous experience with ZUZEX and was happy with the quality of work and pricing. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent just over $50,000 on the project.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted from March–December 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

At this point, we’re attracting new users all the time. In part, their work has helped us bring them into our company. We were happy with the overall look and feel of the site. The results were also great to see. In the past, we’d received complaints about the site, and we don’t recieve those anymore. There hasn’t been any negative user feedback.

How did ZUZEX perform from a project management standpoint?

We used GitHub to track our various issues, and our project manager handled communication well. Tasks were completed efficiently, but there were a few deadlines that slipped through the net. Once we noticed those things, we were able to address them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

This is the first outsourced company that we’ve worked with. The project was completed effectively and met our expectations. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Occasionally, I could tell that it was difficult for them to understand some of the more technical components of the work. There was a bit of a communication and language barrier at times. However, our project manager was great and made up for those challenges.

Even so, it may have been helpful to be a bit more communication between us and the developers. If we had seen the profiles and experiences of their development team, we may have been able to better staff projects according to our requirements. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be detailed in communicating to them exactly what you want. Sometimes, I assumed the understood something that they didn’t fully consider. It’s helpful to provide step-by-step information to them if you can. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the software development manager for a company that creates imaging software for the dental industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Zuzex?

We needed more developers to help build the new version of our imaging software.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Zuzex is helping us with various software development projects, using C#. They've helped us integrate various imaging devices and hardware into our software and have done a great deal of work on our new user interface, using Model–View–ViewModel (MVVM). Additionally, they've helped build an internal web solution for license management, allowing our technicians to have a user interface to access and create license codes.

What is the team composition?

I mostly work with a project manager and five of their developers.

How did you come to work with Zuzex?

I found Zuzex through Upwork. After reading their reviews and talking to others who had worked with them previously, I was convinced that we should give them a shot.

How much have you invested with them?

Last year we invested $116,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together two years ago and the relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Thanks to Zuzex, our capacity to accomplish more tasks has significantly improved. Our small company is now able to push more cases through our product. Adding five of their developers to our team has been invaluable to our business. 

How did Zuzex perform from a project management standpoint?

They're quick to respond and very flexible, utilizing our preferred methods of communication and project management systems.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're easy to work with and very good at what they do.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Try to go into the relationship with a good plan of action, so you know how many developers you'll need to move your projects along.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are an Australian software development company focused on web, mobile, and other applications for national and international business clients. I am the owner of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ZUZEX?

We needed to handle overflow, in terms of projects we couldn't personally manage.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

ZUZEX has worked on multiple projects for us, varying from web development using AngularJS, native iOS work, and Android/iOS cross-platform projects using the Ionic platform. We have also used ZUZEX for an Objective-C Mac OS project.

I primarily deal with ZUZEX's project manager and have little interaction with the actual developers. This style has worked fine. Their manager always seems to be on top of things and has alleviated some of my project management duties. ZUZEX has an in-house testing department, which allows us to have a ready-tested round of changes. By the time we receive the work, there may only be a couple of issues left. I have outsourced to other companies where they saved the code as is and sent it to us without any testing. That was always a pain point.

How did you come to work with ZUZEX?

We found ZUZEX through Freelancer.com. We required a special skill which not many people could offer, namely the ability to read C# code from a Windows application and program a Mac application based on it using Objective-C. ZUZEX told us that they could do this; after reading their profile and reviews, and based on my 15 years of experience, I gained confidence in ZUZEX.

How much have you invested with ZUZEX?

The cost of ZUZEX's services has been between AUD $15,000 and $20,000 [US $11,500-$15,000].

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with ZUZEX a year ago. They continue to support our projects.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have released the mobile software created by ZUZEX and received great feedback from customers. In one case, the client had already developed the bulk of their mobile app through another popular Australian company. They gave it to us, and we reviewed it along with ZUZEX. We were unimpressed with the quality of the source code, especially for the price tag. By the time ZUZEX got through with it, they were able to clean up much of the other developer's mess and optimize the app. By the time we released it to the customer, there were no complaints; people were very happy with it. I reviewed the source code using GitHub and found it to be far ahead of the other company. I was definitely impressed with ZUZEX's standards.

How did ZUZEX perform from a project management standpoint?

I've enjoyed ZUZEX's communication. They reply to our emails quickly and are available five days a week. We primarily communicate through email, GitHub, and Skype.

What did you find most impressive about ZUZEX?

I've outsourced work to over 250 individuals and companies over the last 15 years, and ZUZEX has been the strongest crew I've worked with. I've spoken with their owner and could tell why ZUZEX performed so well. He is always looking at better ways to improve and is never satisfied.

Are there any areas ZUZEX could improve?

No.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

My company develops products for personal health and wellness. We use biomedical sensors to measure heart rates and interpret the information in order to determine how well a person is doing. The product is intended for the consumer market.

What is your position?

I am the owner of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with ZUZEX?

I needed to develop the software for my product. I don't have in-house software developers, so I had to use an outsourced company for the project. I had experience with other groups, mostly out of India. I was not very happy with my previous experiences there, and decided to work with ZUZEX based on their profile.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

We've worked on several projects together over the last year. The first project ZUZEX developed for me consisted of a Windows-based desktop application. They've continued to work on several mobile applications for me since then, both on Android and iOS.

How did you come to work with ZUZEX?

Before I committed to them, I carefully researched their previous work, trying to find a match to what I needed. I wanted to know how good they were, and what the feed-back from previous clients was. I decided to give them a try, and they performed well.

By profession, I am a software developer as well, so I am familiar with what has to be done during the scope of such projects. It was fairly easy to make a decision based on my knowledge.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The average monthly cost for my work with ZUZEX is around $5,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with them a little more than a year ago.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The primary benefit of working with ZUZEX is that they are thorough and able to solve complex tasks.

How did ZUZEX perform from a project management standpoint?

Most of the time, I work with their project manager. He is quite responsive and meticulous. We have detailed discussions about our processes. Communication is very good.

What distinguishes ZUZEX from other providers?

My projects involves working with sensors which connect wirelessly, or via USB, to various devices in order to measure biomedical signals. This involves signal processing, and real-time data parsing and displaying. I previously worked with an Indian company which dropped the project because of its complexity. ZUZEX took over the project and performed very well. They definitely have the necessary set of skills for this work.

Is there anything ZUZEX could have improved or done differently?

Sometimes, I have to wait for their response on certain items. I do realize that they're based overseas, and there is an 11 hour time difference. Sometimes, the urgent response I require doesn't occur, but there's always a good reason for that. I've never been upset with ZUZEX because of this. Since I'm a software developer myself, I clearly understand the challenges they're faced with.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Natural Input Solutions Inc. is a company whose sole focus is providing a better way in which the end-user can edit content on a tablet using a stylus. We offer the world's most efficient gesture-based interface.

My vision for our solution extends back two decades. As a result, I got a US, Canadian, and UK patent for all 32 claims in my natural input design. It's meant to be an ultra-efficient, accurate, gesture-based editing interface. It has been my passion and focus to bring this to light. Unfortunately, the hardware was not available for quite some time. The iPhone was the first hint at a viable medium. Three years later came the iPad, and currently, many companies are putting out ranges of devices that can work with an active stylus.

The reason that 250 million tablets are being sold worldwide annually is not just because of their portability, but because they give access to direct manipulation of content. The stylus becomes an added form of input, for precision that can't be achieved with fingers.

Of course, the keyboard is not going to be replaced, but once a text draft is in place, there's no better product than natural input for achieving this goal.

What is your position?

I'm the president and Chief Executive Officer of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with ZUZEX?

We've seen the emergence of what can be called productivity tablets. Five years ago, when the iPad came out, they started a revolution. At the time, it was focused on content consumption, and not on editing content. It didn't set out to be a replacement for laptops by any stretch of the imagination. Advances in technology have allowed for that replacement to occur today.

We're still faced with a schism. Tablets can be used for anything except for word processing and productivity tasks. When doing that, you have to switch it to a laptop mode. We didn't agree with this view, and instead wanted to provide software that would allow users to accurately and efficiently edit content directly on the screen, using a stylus.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

With the help of ZUZEX, we've built an interactive training utility that surrounds our solution. Gesture-based interfaces in the past had a single mode of operation. Every gesture was interpreted the same way. It was efficient, but not very accurate. Shortly thereafter, came a multi-mode: text, punctuation, and gesture. Separate modes achieved the desired accuracy but, in order to switch between them, there needed to be additional steps. These impacted the very rationale of using gesture-based interfaces, namely efficiency. Other interfaces may be accurate and fully-functional, but only a gesture-based one can be ultra-efficient.

The other part of the equation was being able to teach users the gestures and symbols required.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

We've worked on two projects. The first one had a total cost of $16,500. The second is in progress, and will have a total cost of around $3,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project was started in October, 2015.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any feedback from this engagement?

They've done an excellent job, and have been on time and on budget. The communication was excellent, and I never had to wait for them to respond. I've dealt with a lot of companies and programmers on Elance and outside of it. There's no better company than ZUZEX, if you want to get the job done. I'm thrilled that I've found a group with truly skilled programmers who can get the job done. Other vendors have floundered when faced with the task, whereas ZUZEX went right in and fixed it.

Everything they've delivered was close to being perfect, and there wasn't a great amount of work to be re-done.

How did ZUZEX perform from a project management standpoint?

The initial pace of the development was slow at first, but near the end, they ramped up to a break-neck speed. A remarkable amount of work has been done in just over a month. I am impressed with them from that standpoint.

The delivery time wouldn't have mattered if I was working with programmers that didn't know what they were doing.

What distinguishes ZUZEX from other providers?

Simply their quality. I’ve gone through many developers from around the world, and I find ZUZEX to be the best of all.

Is there anything ZUZEX could have improved or done differently?

They were a bit slow in terms of delivery at the beginning, possibly due to other projects, but that problem was righted. After that, there were no issues in their ability to get the job done or with general communication skills.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

My company is a one man consulting shop. I do various software development. I'm currently primarily servicing startups.

What is your position?

I am the owner and founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with ZUZEX?

I felt the need to scale up my development capabilities. I was faced with a lot of work that I couldn't do myself. 

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

They were responsible for developing an e-commerce mobile app and website. That involved iOS and Magento integration. Currently, we are working together on an iOS app that is just finished that is interfacing with Magento. They've also done some PHP work as part of our work together on another project.

How did you come to work with ZUZEX?

I have a local business partner that I sometimes work with called TS Worldwide Holdings – TSWWH. They have been working with ZUZEX for years, so that's how I got to know them.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

For the mobile app, the total cost was around $18,000. The other app was more like $5,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in April 2015. We submitted it to the App Store earlier this week [October 2015]. There might have to be some more finishing touches that we have to put on, depending on the feedback from Apple. There will be ongoing work.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

ZUZEX is very precise at working with the requirements. They fixed issues that came up quickly. Whatever you specify is what they do.

What distinguishes ZUZEX from other providers?

The CEO of ZUZEX [Ivan Usatchev] is quite approachable. We had a really good relationship on a personal level as well. He came to Singapore and we met. There is not that much bureaucracy. I have direct access to the developers if I need. I have access to the project manager if I need as well as the CEO.

Is there anything ZUZEX could have improved or done differently?

I think they could be leveraging modern technology a bit more. We're working on that. They can use collaboration tools a bit more. Like having a common installation – things like that.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of The Augmented Text Company LTD

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Develop the future of text.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Develop Reader for macOS
• Improve Liquid for macOS

SOLUTION

How did you find ZUZEX?

Online Search

Why did you select ZUZEX over others?

Good value for cost

How many teammates from ZUZEX were assigned to this project?

1 Employee

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

Developed the Reader macOS application to a high quality.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Software builds.

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

They have been available on Telegram with good speed.

What was your primary form of communication with ZUZEX?

Email or Messaging App

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

They kept working to make sure all worked well.

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

Not really no.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

 I am the President & CEO of a software company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Software and Mobile app development.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• iOS development
• Research
• App Store monetization

SOLUTION

How did you find ZUZEX?

• Referral
• Other

Why did you select ZUZEX over others?

• Referred to me
• Integrity

How many teammates from ZUZEX were assigned to this project?

2

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

The company has provided developers for our iOS development needs. many project was done for us in the past few years, amongst them our latest translator app “Ultimate Language Translator” which is available on the AppStore.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

All projects were completed to our satisfaction. In fact they exceeded our expectations.

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

All projects were handled professionally and managed perfectly and delivered on time. They went beyond what was expected.

What was your primary form of communication with ZUZEX?

Email or Messaging App

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

Project and developer management. Cost estimate vs actual cost Delivery time Follow up

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

No