Intellectsoft

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of project management at Archrival, a youth culture agency. We do a lot of strategy, design, and field marketing projects for brands worldwide. We provide research, design, digital production, and development work. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Intellectsoft?

We were designing and developing in-house a custom app to serve our field teams. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we had to let go of our development team halfway through the project. We were looking for a partner to take over the full development of our app and its features.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Intellectsoft is developing our native app that displays various kinds of reports, and it’s available on Android, iOS, and the web. Our field teams fill out forms through the app, and their data gets consolidated in an analyzed page on the platform. The app also allows our teams to input their schedules, log their time in a location, and upload pictures and qualitative data.

First, Intellectsoft helped us with requirements gathering, and from there, they designed low-fidelity wireframes. We worked together to come up with the final design. We’ve then collected all the other requirements, and Intellectsoft has developed the app against those requirements.

Intellectsoft has also provided us with a business analyst, and she ensures that we’re developing features that will get the most impact on the app. Likewise, they’ve assigned a project manager that ensures our budgets and scope are in place and that we’re hitting our deployments and releases on time. 

Throughout the development, Intellectsoft conducts live demos for us. They go through a sprint lifecycle, and we test everything they’ve developed. They implement once they get our thumbs up. They’re also handling all our App Store uploads and certifications. 

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with Maria (IT Project Manager), a business analyst, one designer, two frontend developers, and some backend developers. We also have a QA specialist that pops in and out as needed. Maria is our main point of contact. 

How did you come to work with Intellectsoft?

We sent RFPs to and got proposals from five companies. Intellectsoft rose to the top of our consideration just with the way that they framed their proposal. 

We knew they were the team we needed because they had the skill set we were looking for. Their services were holistic, and they’ve also seemed the most excited. We wanted someone interested in working with us so that they would feel invested in the partnership.  

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent close to $400,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2020, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It’s been tricky at first since we’ve had a development team in-house, and we’ve handed off our entire codebase to Intellectsoft without any introduction or training. They’ve had to get their hands dirty pretty quickly to understand our codebase, system, and functionalities. That way, they can make recommendations to move off of our existing platforms. 

Intellectsoft’s suggestions made sense to us early on. They’ve saved us some money because we’ve been able to consolidate moving everything to Amazon infrastructure. Their work has helped speed up our deployment and make a lot of things easier. Now they’re at a place where they’ve fully reviewed and cleaned up the existing code. We’ve seen a reduction in bugs that popped up since working with them. 

How did Intellectsoft perform from a project management standpoint?

Ever since Maria got involved, Intellectsoft’s project management has been excellent. We regularly meet to discuss commitments, progress, and issues. Maria has been able to put things front and center and raise any flags way early in the process so we can stay on budget. 

We want to make sure that we’re tracking the budget we set forward. They’ve been on target every single month with our expectations. We use Slack and Zoom to communicate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Intellectsoft’s communication is very efficient and clear — there’s never any confusion about expectations and where we’re at with the project. 

They do an excellent job setting expectations, communicating any issues early on, and scoping out what’s next. We’re always planning 1–2 months ahead of time. Additionally, as soon as I ask a question, I’ll always have a response within 24 hours, even though we’re in different time zones. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I recommend working with them. Having a business analyst is beneficial. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a VP and partner at eHold, a group of international companies that speed up business digitalization.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Intellectsoft?

Our company needed to temporarily extend our team to develop a convenient data analysis software for our client on a tight schedule. We didn’t have enough software developers on board so we made a decision to partner with an outsourcing company.

SOLUTION

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

We were lucky enough to find out about Intellectsoft from Clutch search. We have reviewed their website, service range, and took into consideration other reviews of their clients. A strong portfolio of client cases, relevant technological expertise, and more than a decade presence on the market persuaded us to leave the request. The next day, their sales manager contacted us and we started discussing the project in detail.

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

The Intellectsoft developers were part of our team and collaborated closely with us on creating a data analysis software.

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

On the call with Intellectsoft’s sales manager we discussed the team extension we needed along with the technical skills required for the development process of our particular software product. Our team provided the core requirements and based on it we were given the list of candidates we chose from after the conducted interviews. After the selection process, developers started to assist us right away as our timeline was very tight.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Intellectsoft team members helped us create a well-designed data analysis solution keeping our customers’ needs in mind. They picked out our requirements, business needs, and considered all our ideas, and implemented them in the end result. We worked together on the project for 6 months and released it by the end of March, 2021. We started from scratch and finished the development process according to the deadlines we requested.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The collaboration between our teams was very smooth and extremely effective. The developers from Intellectsoft got all the product requirements and specifications to take on the development process as soon as possible. We had daily Zoom meetings to make sure we all were on the same page and everything was going as planned. We managed tasks via Jira which made it easy for us to track and address technical issues and deliver exceptional results.

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

They understood the specifics of our industry where we operate and created the product that we needed to have. What’s also important is that the price for the dedicated team is pretty reasonable and it fits our budget.

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

Everything was handled professionally.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the COO of GeoZilla and Family Locator, a second company. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Intellectsoft?

My company, GeoZilla, acquired Family Locator approximately nine months ago. The application was very popular among families, and it was also very successful financially. After we made the deal, we went to Intellectsoft to help us improve the application. We utilized their expertise and resource pool.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

One of the challenges we faced after acquiring Family Locator was to design a roadmap to migrate it into our cloud infrastructure. We used Intellectsoft’s expertise to make the best choice on how to do this, picking Google as a cloud provider.

Then, we had to completely overhaul the backend. We had a few strategic aspects that were essential in the backend. They included integrating IoT because GeoZilla is IoT-oriented.

What is the team composition?

At peak, we worked with 10–12 people from their team. We worked closely with a solutions architect, full stack developers, QA testers, and UI/UX experts.

How did you come to work with Intellectsoft?

We found them through our network. A few of our parent company's co-founders worked with Intellectsoft in the past, on other mobile projects. In our grapevine, Intellectsoft is known for its expertise in the mobile domain, as well as in web development.

How much have you invested with them?

Right now, we’ve invested above $250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Intellectsoft in August 2019 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The increase of power users is one of the metrics we utilize for Family Locator. I’d estimate we have had an increase of 15% over the last six months. We’ve also seen increased adoption. Families have liked the product.

How did Intellectsoft perform from a project management standpoint?

I participate in regular communications, and I’m in charge of the financial domain as well, so I take care of invoicing and settlements. They’re solid and deliver on their promises.

I’ve been in touch with them both directly and indirectly. I've been on a few calls and indirectly communicated with them on Slack and email with at least two project managers. They seem quite structured and well-rounded. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They stood out in terms of UI/UX, working on integrating the UI/UX to the IoT.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They probably could’ve given us more resources when we asked for them. But, we resolved this quite quickly with them. At the end of the day, they were able to help us with whatever we asked.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

There’s no magic bullet. Success is a matter of proper communication. Early on clients, should go in and structure their roadmap. This should be done as early as possible in order to book the necessary resources. That’s something we could’ve done better on our side.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Deltager, a software company that delivers an event system with an integrated payment system in the Norwegian and UK markets.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Intellectsoft?

We needed extra programmers to help us develop new functionalities on our platform as well as migrate our platform from .NET to Angular. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The first part of our solution is a software for organizing registrations and payments and also to evaluate from the participants on those events. We had a 10-year old model in .NET that was quite old fashioned. They helped us to rebuild it in Angular with more functionality and better UX.

The biggest project that they just finished was a new event setup. It’s possible for organizers to create their own accounts with us and set up their own events. That was way too complicated on the old platform. It’s fewer steps for the organizer to set up their event now.

They finished two models and in December, they started with the third model, which is to simplify our registration page model. Last week, we invited a team to Norway for workshops. We defined the next project that will be a communication tool on a new platform.

What is the team composition?

We have three developers in-house and three dedicated developers from Intellectsoft in Ukraine.

We’ve now asked them to move our stack to Azure and optimize our database. There will be a part-time person that will be added to help with that.  

How did you come to work with Intellectsoft?

We were struggling to hire our own technical people here, until a technical guy on my board introduced me to Intellectsoft. Our initial thinking was to use them as a consultant. Then, I started discussions with them and I decided it was worth have a team of them working on a new stack.  

How much have you invested with them?

We have invested about $400,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement with Intellectsoft began in April 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It is taking longer than we’re used to, but we’re doing quality checks now. We used to have our customers do our testing, but now we’re having Intellectsoft do it. The first service we launched last spring and we haven’t had any bugs. They deliver very high-quality results.

How did Intellectsoft perform from a project management standpoint?

We didn’t spend much time specifying the project before we started working with them. We have bi-weekly sprint planning, and their three developers are in daily contact through Slack and weekly telephone meetings with the tech lead in Ukraine. They give us weekly reports on Friday afternoons on what was done the past week and what the potential issues are that I have to look into.

There are monthly management calls as well with both teams. They’re very good at following up on sending an invoice and making sure I’m paying on time. I’m very happy with their service and how they managed the project. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I appreciate that they send me weekly updates and have monthly management calls. I was skeptical at the beginning and didn’t see the need for it, but it’s been a good thing to have two separate channels for technical and managerial issues.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I expressed my concern about the speed. I’m happier having a live, 90% model than to wait three more months to get it 95%. It’s a consequence of our tech lead in Ukraine who is a smart developer and doesn’t want to deliver anything that we’re not 100% happy with. What we did was look at the process to see how we can improve the process and speed up the testing part on our side.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Invest time to make sure the first team member is very good.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director and COO at Investment Evolution, a money transfer platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Intellectsoft?

We needed a custom-built application for our new international money transfer business service that incorporated blockchain and our own digital asset within our web application.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

In the initial stage, we completed a workshop with Intellectsoft in Kyiv, Ukraine, where their main development team is located. The workshop involved a full week’s analysis of business and project needs that resulted in the full scope of the project. We found it to be very helpful.

When we were ready to proceed, we engaged Intellectsoft to develop the MVP. Then we moved into the next phase of building the web-based application, making enhancements along the way. Intellectsoft also helped with the app’s design and the look and feel. We provide input and their designer produces designs based on our feedback.

The MVP is complete. We’ve now moved onto a next additional product add-on of loans to the platform, which linked within the application. We wanted to move quickly and get to this first MVP then add on other products and features as well as continue to make enhancements. 

What is the team composition?

For the initial MVP project, we had one frontend developer, one backend developer, a business analyst/project manager, and one QA. Intellectsoft also had some DevOps and designers as required. They can scale up and down according to our needs. The project manager is our main point of contact.

How did you come to work with Intellectsoft?

We did a lot of online research and spoke to a number of different groups. The Intellectsoft team impressed us most with their knowledge of blockchain and flexible engagement terms. They had experience with developing traditional enterprise-level software as well as experience with blockchain development. We enjoyed the initial workshop we did with them and then proceeded with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $100,000–$250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April 2019, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

All staff employees have reviewed and tested the MVP all the way through. They’re happy with the functionality, the look, the feel of the product. 

Intellectsoft has dealt with a lot of enterprise clients with large engagements of big companies. We’re an established business, but are a startup this industry and with this product. We appreciated their ability to understand that.

Their team completed the process to transfer money efficiently. We’re also very happy with the progress of the loan platform and functionality.

Intellectsoft continues to understand our needs, come up with good ideas, and get the initial version out as quickly as possible. They’ve provided resources such as their technology lead in their blockchain lab to help us with new products like the loan product add-on. It's been very beneficial to get that extra level of service.

How did Intellectsoft perform from a project management standpoint?

The team is very responsive. We communicate mostly through email and Slack, and we have regular weekly calls for status updates. Intellectsoft has their own daily standup meetings, and we get the project manager’s email summary of those.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are a professional, established company with an enterprise background and a core development team. Intellectsoft has processes and management in place to make sure that everything runs smoothly. Their flexibility and ability to work with us in a sprint environment have been great for us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we’re very happy with them. Initially, they started development in a similar way as for their large enterprise clients, but once we communicated our preferred style and speed they adapted quickly.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be aware of your own style and needs and communicate that to them. This will ensure that everyone is moving in the right direction.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of delivery operation for a financial blockchain startup. We build financial services on the blockchain, and I manage our in-house and outsourced software delivery.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Intellectsoft?

We needed a partner who could quickly mobilize a team and identify specialized blockchain developers we could work with.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Intellectsoft built the interim platform and frontend for our iOS and Android apps. The business analysts took the company vision and translated that into technical speak, informing our user stories. We provided initial designs and features for what we wanted the app to look like, and then the developers built the frontend and backend. In total, Intellectsoft took the project from inception to launch, implementing and deploying the apps across the Apple Store and Google Play.

What is the team composition?

We work with about 20 developers across the backend, DevOps, and automation tests. We also have business analysts.

How did you come to work with Intellectsoft?

We looked for specialized blockchain developers in Ukraine. We found a team that was a good price and that had a strong history of blockchain solutions and apps, so we hired them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between £550,000-£700,000 (approximately $646,000–$905,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We partnered in July 2018, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’re self-organized and help the management team understand the software delivery journey.

How did Intellectsoft perform from a project management standpoint?

I used to run daily stand-up meetings and have numerous conversations with the team leaders who reported directly to me. We later shifted to them becoming self-sufficient and working more closely with the designers so that I didn’t have to be as involved. That process has worked out well, and they still provide regular updates.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The developers are experienced and knowledgeable, working well together as a team. They believe in the product vision and work hard to meet our expectations.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their prices are higher than some other outsourced models, but they do high-quality work.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Have an in-person meeting or video conference to communicate your vision and discuss the delivery cycle clearly. A strong beginning will optimize the entire partnership.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm a product manager at Euro Accident, a company that sells life insurance and other related products. I mainly work with telecommunications and on our development projects.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Intellectsoft?

We wanted to build a mobile app—we’d never had one before.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We did a workshop analysis so that Intellectsoft could understand what we wanted to build and offer our customers. They then immediately began the process of developing the native iOS and Android apps.

We wanted the app to be more than just a window, so Intellectsoft did some heavy integration with our backend system and some third-party partners. For example, the app is cloud-based and user authentication goes through the Swedish mobile bank ID. The app allows clients to make claims, schedule appointments, and pay deductibles. Nearly the whole claims process can be done in the app.

We’re currently planning the next version of the app, which will have more features and functionalities.

What is the team composition?

Intellectsoft provided nine resources, including designers, QA analysts, iOS and Android developers, business analysts, and a project manager. We mainly interacted with the project manager.

How did you come to work with Intellectsoft?

I found them on Google. I wanted a Swedish IT company and found a number of them. Intellectsoft has a Swedish phone number, but they’re not actually located in Sweden. However, we were impressed with their interview, so we hired them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $400,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We partnered in May 2017, and they delivered the final product in December. They currently provide maintenance and minor development.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We don't have many metrics at the moment. We just launched the app in February and have barely marketed it, but it already has about 4,000 downloads. It seems to be streamlining the claims process, making our customers happier and saving our agents time.

How did Intellectsoft perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re professional and work well in the agile process, especially in Scrum. They managed their team well and made sure we understood what was being worked on.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They seemed genuinely interested in us as a company and wanted to learn about our services. They visited with us on-site and engaged in a way that we appreciated. They spent a lot of time helping us figure out what we wanted. We’re happy with their work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing I can think of.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are an e-commerce company which combines a blockchain into the e-commerce experience. I am a project manager for the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Intellectsoft?

Our challenge was to make our business model accessible to our target population, namely shoppers in China.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Intellectsoft is developing our e-commerce app and the infrastructure around it. It integrates our blockchain into the e-commerce shopping network. The app features a shopping platform in which shoppers, merchants, and admins can interact in a way which makes sense. There is a leaderboard for the best shoppers, bringing gamification elements to the shopping experience.

The app is the equivalent of Amazon.com combined with integrated blockchains for shopping tokens and reward points. It is also a merchant platform where users can post their products and descriptions, as well as create ways for shipping those products. There is a conflict resolution element to it, meaning that, if a shopper doesn't receive a product, they have a means of contacting merchants. There is a referral system which Intellectsoft integrated based on our company specifications.

We also have audiovisual elements meant to create a story out of the shopping experience. Someone can join a futuristic world and join a virtual city with fellow shoppers.

How did you come to work with Intellectsoft?

The head of our network decided to engage two agencies at once, in order to diversify risk. We gave them the same project, and whoever did it better, would be chosen for ongoing work.

We had seen some of Intellectsoft’s previous projects, as well as their ability to scale. They weren't big enough to get lost in the ranks, but Intellectsoft is big enough to handle large scale projects without a problem. We decided to give them a try on a smaller project. It went well, and we expanded the relationship to the front-facing technology integration for our main project.

How much have you invested with Intellectsoft?

The cost of Intellectsoft's work has been in the hundreds of thousands of dollars range. We will exceed $1 million dollars if the relationship continues.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Intellectsoft six or seven months ago.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It would be hard to share specific metrics. We have developed the project in phases, and due to the nature of our founder, our company has a bit of an unorthodox development style. Our creative person is a visionary entrepreneur.  It’s always a challenge to translate vision into specifics.  We've thrown this challenge at Intellectsoft, and our satisfaction comes from their ability to balance out the vision and transform it into specific project requirements in a way which accommodates for the vision of our founder without slowing down the project and getting it stuck in one particular place.

This makes it difficult to give specific metrics, but whenever we set a deadline for a phase of the project, Intellectsoft put in the effort to make it work, both sticking to the release dates and satisfying our requirements. We've given them a challenge, and they've met it, which is why Intellectsoft has become our leading service provider for technology development.

How did Intellectsoft perform from a project management standpoint?

Our success metrics are mainly tied to the timely release of each phase of the technology in line with the specifications we agreed on. So far, Intellectsoft has been within our success metrics, and the project has advanced well. We're an international company so there are the usual culture, language, and technology gaps when working across a distributed network of people. Intellectsoft has managed the process well whenever we needed to send a representative to London or other parts of the world, and sit down in person with them. We've been very satisfied with the interpersonal communication as well.

I don't know what the full project management toolset used by Intellectsoft is, but they've been accommodating in adopting whatever style of communication the client uses, whether it's WhatsApp or anything else.

What did you find most impressive about Intellectsoft?

I’m impressed with the good communication and the willingness to go the extra mile and understand what the customer wants. As mentioned, Future World is an international company.  Intellectsoft has been able to translate the founder’s vision into technology. Instead of becoming frustrated, they've doubled-down the investment they're willing to make in good communication. This is something we've been impressed with, compared to some of our other technology providers, which became exacerbated at times.  This was a challenge Intellectsoft was willing to confront, meeting our requirements while still not slowing down the process. They found a good balance and dealt with the challenges rather than complaining about them.

Are there any areas Intellectsoft could improve?

It's hard to criticize them since we've had an unorthodox partnership in terms of the challenges we've thrown at Intellectsoft. We develop in phases and are often refining the end result.  If Intellectsoft knew the full picture on day one, they could have had a more comprehensive approach. It's not fair to lay this at their feet since the limitations came from our phased approach. Had we started with an existing e-commerce platform and edited that, rather than building from scratch, it could have been better, but I wouldn’t interpret this as a criticism. It's more of a retroactive wish.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We provide a mobile platform for family safety. It connects users around the world and gives them peace of mind about how safe they are. We have around 1.5 million users and are working on expanding the platform.

I am a co-founder and the CEO of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Intellectsoft?

At one point, we passed a usage milestone, and our biggest problem became the performance and growth of the platform. We needed help building a robust and high-performance backend system for our users. We weren't a startup anymore and needed to build an enterprise platform which could handle our customers and data in the future.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Intellectsoft built our backend system, allowing us to scale our platform without any pain. We have been seeing a 25– 30% growth in new users every month, generating huge amounts of traffic: around 2.5 million data points per day. We needed to provide fast reactions and history management on the backend. Intellectsoft proposed building a cached MongoDB database.

Our company's CTO and co-founder has been working directly with Intellectsoft's representative on technical requirements from our side. We have a simple, straightforward scope for the storage of our data.

How did you come to work with Intellectsoft?

We had been looking for ways on which to build a reliable backend but didn't have enough in-house expertise to do it by ourselves. Our development team is located in Kiev, and one of our friends told us about Intellectsoft. They offered outsourced development and had expertise in our area. I exchanged a couple of emails with them, and Intellectsoft offered us some interesting ideas for long-term functionality, proposing that we use the Redis database, among other things. They thought about our business needs and potential growth. Intellectsoft didn't simply implement what we asked for but also offered solutions for how we could approach the future.

How much have you invested with Intellectsoft?

The cost of Intellectsoft's work was $300,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Intellectsoft in August 2016. Our project had a six-month runtime, ending at the beginning of February 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Presently, we are able to handle twice as many users as in the past without any performance lag. The average response time from our backend to the users was around two to three seconds, and we have reduced it to one second. Intellectsoft has developed a transparent and scalable structure, through which we can easily add additional servers.

How did Intellectsoft perform from a project management standpoint?

Intellectsoft worked autonomously. They were managed by our co-founder, and we had a few meetings during the process, discussing ideas and the structure of the platform. Intellectsoft reached back to us with proposals, we identified potential downsides, and they jumped back with a final solution. Intellectsoft didn't require day-to-day monitoring. We received reports and stats for their work and didn't require any additional resources on our end for managing that work. We usually used Slack and JIRA for communication.

What did you find most impressive about Intellectsoft?

Intellectsoft was able to find experts who could build the right infrastructure for us and answer all our questions. They explained the upside and downside of every idea and every potential structure we wanted to build. They're experts in their field.

Are there any areas Intellectsoft could improve?

The biggest improvement for Intellectsoft would be to have more public appearances. I was referred to them by a friend and hadn't heard about Intellectsoft before, so writing articles or participating in conferences would be beneficial to their group.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a full-service, peer-to-peer, mPOS [mobile point-of-sale] money transfer service. I am the CEO of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Intellectsoft?

We're a startup company, so we were looking to hire an internal technology team. As we looked at doing so, we realized that it would be somewhat cost prohibitive. We wanted to keep the initial headcount to a smaller level, so we looked to outsource in order to conquer our challenges. We had architected and specified everything and were looking to build an MVP [minimum viable product].

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We gave Intellectsoft a precise set of requirements and designs for our platform and had them build it. We gave their team some leeway in terms of creativity and architecting aspects, but we were the main designers of the platform.

How did you come to work with Intellectsoft?

We looked at around 100 vendors and narrowed the list down to 12, and eventually three. We picked Intellectsoft out of those. We put everyone on a tight deadline for responding to our request for proposal. Many of them simply gave us quotes, others said that it wasn't possible, while the rest didn't meet the deadline. Intellectsoft took the hands-on approach of calling us immediately and showing interest in the project. They asked for more information in order to provide a quote, and also to have a two-hour meeting with us so that we could figure out together what it was we needed.

We had several conference calls, which showed us that Intellectsoft was putting in the time and effort upfront. We didn't receive this from other well-known vendors, who simply gave us a quote. It was true that we didn't give enough information to quote, and we knew that, but it was a part of our selection process.

How much have you invested with Intellectsoft?

The cost of Intellectsoft's work has been above $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Intellectsoft seven or eight months ago. The partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We've built out the MVP and it's been a success. We haven't launched since there are some compliance steps to go through, but we've been using the platform internally and have given many demos of it. There are many people using our product in a preliminary mode, and it works well. We're very pleased with it.

How did Intellectsoft perform from a project management standpoint?

We've enjoyed the relationship, and feel that Intellectsoft is very accommodating for anything we have needed. We've definitely put them through the iron, so to speak. A large part of the team is based in Eastern Europe, and they've accommodated to our time zone, for example. This isn't just for finishing the product, but also on a daily basis for our standup meetings. We didn't see this in other vendors.

We also required the company to give us unfettered access to raw code while it was being built, so that we could check it along the way. This was also something that many companies weren't willing to do. We pushed the confines of what Intellectsoft was willing to do at that point.

Intellectsoft is using the typical tools in the industry, like GitHub. We'd like to see some independence from their systems, and some better integration with our own. We didn't set this up from the start, but I would prefer to have Intellectsoft work from our environment. They do offer this approach, though.

What did you find most impressive about Intellectsoft?

We found Intellectsoft to be very flexible and thick-skinned from some perspectives. We're entrepreneurs running a startup, so we want to run certain things in a specific way. We were very fickle in many ways, and Intellectsoft dealt with that. This is a huge quality of their character. We often told Intellectsoft's team that we hated a certain approach, only to change our minds a month later. Much of this was a learning curve for us, and it went a long way in showing their character.

We were putting a lot of eggs in one basket by building our MVP, and we weren't sure it would work out. We needed to test the relationship upfront, and we've certainly done that since day one, and continue to do so by pushing the boundaries of where things can go. Intellectsoft has adapted well to this, and it continues to be a big reason for doing business with them.

Are there any areas Intellectsoft could improve?

Whenever we're dealing with offshoring, we have to deal with cultural differences. This is true even when dealing with the West Coast versus East Coast in the US, but, when going overseas, there are more nuances and possible interpretations for anything we say. We've had a lot of difficulty with that, even though one of our partners is from Europe and we're quite experienced. Dealing with a different culture can be difficult, and we're not insulated from this fact. It's an area where Intellectsoft could perform better, insulating those cultural challenges from the client by using the Palo Alto team.