S-PRO

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the process and project manager for Janado, an e-commerce company. We sell new and used smartphones and tablets on marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, and our own website. We refurbish the used phones in order to sell them.

What challenge were you trying to address with S-PRO?

They’ve solved two big challenges so far. The first challenge was finding a way to put new stock into our stock management system.

What was the scope of their involvement?

S-PRO built a tool for our inventory purposes. The new stock amount was too big and wasn’t working properly with our previous platform.  It took forever to charge and it wasn’t really professional, so we built our own software with S-PRO from scratch. With the help of the tool, we were able to scan all of our devices and put them into the stock management system.

We’re also using it to manage all of our returns. When the customer returns the item to us, we scan it on the system and it decides what will happen. It’s been quite a big improvement in our work process because we were previously doing everything by hand. Our employee had to decide what would happen, and now anyone can create returns for us. We don’t have to train someone specifically to do that, which is quite cost-efficient, helpful, and faster.

Additionally, S-PRO has developed another tool that changes all of our prices on the different marketplaces. We just put in one price there and it automatically calculates all the others for the other marketplaces so we don’t have to do that by hand anymore.

That tool solves two problems at once because it’s obviously faster to just type in one price, but it also eliminates problems with typos. In the past, we’ve wanted to sell an item for €500 (approximately $600 US) but sold it for €50 (approximately $60 USD) instead because there was a typo. This doesn’t happen anymore because the system already checks that the price is reasonable, and if it’s not, you can’t upload it.

What is the team composition?

There have been some switches, especially with the project manager, who’s been changed 4–5 times already. It hasn’t been ideal, but the transition is always pretty good and flawless. In the end, it hasn’t altered the results.

We’ve had 2–3 programmers working with us in total; we had one at the beginning, and then he switched at some point, so we got a new one. There’s always someone checking to see that everything is working properly, but I don’t really know them.

How did you come to work with S-PRO?

One of the members of our team was pretty good friends with their CEO. They had gone to kindergarten together and stayed in contact. At some point, we knew we needed a solution, and he said he knew a company in Ukraine. That was how we found them.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve spent around $25,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started developing the tool with S-PRO in July 2017, and we started using it in 2018. That project is currently finished, but we’re doing some bug fixes and so on, so our relationship is ongoing.

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

We started off doing everything manually and now it has completely switched to fully working with the tool. It’s quite an obvious improvement for us — everything has been more efficient. Everyone in the company has worked with the tool, and we use it on a daily basis. We’ve been very happy, and if we weren’t, they would change anything immediately.

How did S-PRO perform from a project management standpoint?

For me, they’ve been really good from a project management perspective. To be honest, I was quite inexperienced when I started working with them, but it has been really easy. Everything has worked out really well; the feedback we’ve gotten from them has been easy to navigate.

We usually communicate through Skype, and we’ve used Trello when we’ve been actively developing new tasks. Since we plan on having some new projects with them in the future, we’ll probably use Skype and Trello again.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The results we’ve had so far have been great; we haven't bothered to look for a different company. Their pricing is really fair, and the communication is on a professional level, but they’re still friendly and easy to talk to.

In my opinion, the time they need to develop something is pretty good, but I don’t have a comparison for that.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only thing that comes to mind is the switching of project managers. It wasn’t ideal, but there wasn’t much they could do in that sense because people were leaving the company or transferring to different projects.

I guess it just happens, but having five different project managers in the span of 3–4 years is a bit too much. That’s the only thing that wasn’t great, but all in all, the transitions were really good and went on without any problems.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

This isn’t specific to S-PRO, but you should tell them exactly what you want in order to receive it. In the past, we had some problems when we roughly described what we needed because then it didn’t match our needs 100%, so we had to fix it again.

With S-PRO, we told them precisely what we needed from the beginning, so we got exactly what we wanted, and it worked flawlessly. If you give them input, they work with that input, but if you don’t, then they work with their own ideas. Therefore, you need to have a clear idea of what you want, and if you don’t have it clear, you should talk to them first.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of OMNIFOX GmbH. We offer consultancy services to Amazon on one side and handle logistics operations on the other for our customers from the US, UK, and Germany.

What challenge were you trying to address with S-PRO?

Since our company doesn’t have in-house knowledge about software development or IT services, we contacted S-PRO to develop a system that could allow our customers to see their inventory in real-time and manage inbound and outbound logistics.

What was the scope of their involvement?

S-PRO is currently developing a warehouse management system that connects our logistics facility centers directly with Amazon, Shopify, and other relevant marketplaces. The solution is a web application that can be accessed through mobile devices, but it’s not a mobile app per se.

We provided them with wireframes that our team had created during our planning process. S-PRO has been building and designing the software from scratch, hosting it on AWS, and programming it using Python and monolithic architecture. 

We’re still in the testing phase; the staff is working on the software’s product upload and sales platform connection management functionalities.

What is the team composition?

We communicate mostly with Victoria (Project Manager), and we are in direct contact with two solution architects. We also work with four backend engineers, two frontend developers, and two business analysts. 

How did you come to work with S-PRO?

I knew the CEO of the company through a business partner I had worked with. We considered a couple of providers just to get some quotes, but we decided pretty fast on S-PRO. 

How much have you invested in them?

The estimated cost of the project so far has been between €100,000–€120,000 (approximately $122,000–$147,000 USD). 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the project around March 2021, and it’s ongoing.

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

S-PRO has been able to deliver everything as planned, despite our tight schedule. We haven’t had any delays, and the team has made great progress. The deliverables so far have been excellent, and we haven’t found any bugs or errors. 

How did S-PRO perform from a project management standpoint?

So far, we are very happy with Victoria, and our communication with the team has been great. They respond immediately and are available 24/7 in case something comes up.

We typically communicate through WhatsApp and email. We have weekly update calls on Mondays and Fridays and set up meetings if needed.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team is very hardworking, proactive, and is always motivated to get the work done — one of their highlights is the strength of their employees. S-PRO guides their customer throughout the whole process — I’d definitely recommend them. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

The staff could improve on communication. There have been times when we've had to set up another call with the team because we didn’t have all the required information to proceed. We’ve suggested having a prior call to gather all the needed information and get a more complete agenda to make sure we have everything ready for the meeting. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I don’t have any advice for potential customers besides talking to the team about what I just mentioned about the calls. 

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the product owner of the project GetphY from the foundation Siel Bleu. Getphy.com is a web platform providing Adapted Physical Activity sessions online.

For what projects/services did your company hire S-PRO, and what were your goals?

We hired S-Pro team in order to develop and maintain our platform.

How did you select S-PRO and what were the deciding factors?

We chose S-Pro resources based on their skills, their experience and cost estimate.

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

A big work has been done first in order to refactor our existing functionalities. Then we achieved to deliver a dashboard for our clients and a group of functionalities that required PHP, React JS technologies and UX/UI skills too.

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

Our technical team was made of one technical leader and two developers (one dedicated to frontend tasks and one to backend). We also worked with one UX/UI designer.

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

Our clients are really satisfied about the new functionnalities provided by our technical team. They renewed their contracts and trust.

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

We work with 2-weeks sprints using the Scrum methodology. The technical team has daily meeting carried out by the tech lead and at the end of each sprint, we have several meetings as sprint planning and sprint review. We used Slack, Jira and GitHub as communication and project tools.

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

They plan and deliver the functionalities we need on time. Plus, we're impressed by the skills of their developers.

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

The communication issues with english at the beginning and the difficulty to popularise some technical informations.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the chief of staff at Exaloan AG. We’re a German fintech active in the digital lending space. Basically, we’re setting up a marketplace that connects institutional investors with online lending platforms. The app will channel institutional money into the digital lending space in an organized way. In my role, I’m a project manager and I oversee the product development of the platform.

What challenge were you trying to address with S-PRO?

We brought them on to develop the platform for us. We had an MVP that was working on static data. Now, S-PRO is building the platform from the ground up that works with live data and API integration.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’re providing a full app development package. The solution is a web app hosted on AWS. We have a server that holds all the programs. The S-PRO team is handling the solution’s frontend. There’s a visualization function that visualizes all the different loans from the loan owner's data that are available on the marketplace. There are also some statistics that are calculated in the background. The web app has a log-in feature and full-time management.

S-PRO is also developing the solution’s backend. There are API connections to all the different loan providers. There’s a live injection of the borrower’s data. Whenever there’s a new loan on the associated platform, we automatically collect the borrower data. Then, we run the analysis in the background. S-PRO is entirely handling the database in the background and stabilization of the data.

What is the team composition?

The team has grown over the duration of the project. In the beginning, we started with a project manager, assistant project manager, and full-stack developer. Over the course of the project, we added another frontend developer, a business analyst, a software architect, and a QA engineer.

How did you come to work with S-PRO?

My boss had some contacts in the Ukrainian development space. After the development of the MVP, we screened some Ukrainian development agencies. Out of those we had shortlisted, S-PRO made the best impression.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement started in December 2020.

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

On the qualitative side, we’re pretty happy with the work they do. We set up the design and how the frontend should look and then gave them access to it and so far, we’ve had no issues. The development efforts have been smooth on the frontend side.

On the backend side, we’ve gotten substantial support from them. We had a broad idea of how the backend would look like and got senior management attention from their CTO who took time personally to review our sketch and refine it. S-PRO has done substantial consultation efforts to extend, work, and build on our vision. They’re making it more practical and feasible.

How did S-PRO perform from a project management standpoint?

We run on Microsoft Teams and added S-PRO to ours. All of our communication is through there. We have a chat function with the whole project team where we post questions. In the beginning that wasn’t very smooth, possibly because they hadn’t had much past experience with Teams.

However, S-PRO picked it up really quickly, and now it’s seamless. Our communication with them is excellent. Additionally, we have daily meetings and ad-hoc meetings. Their team also utilizes Jira, Confluence, and Bitbucket.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Our team was very impressed with the senior management attention we got from their CTO. He takes the time to talk to us and review our ideas. He’s a very high-ranking senior executive who is extremely knowledgeable. He was one of the reasons we actually went with S-PRO. We really valued that he took the time to do software architecture for us. His input has been much appreciated and esteemed. We feel very valued by them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there hasn’t been anything major. Any hiccups or challenges were quickly cleared up. S-PRO is quick to take our feedback as well as give us feedback on how we can improve the collaboration. Everything has been working smoothly.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure that communication is smooth from the very beginning of your engagement. Have a good working relationship where every problem or issue can be addressed openly and quickly. Having a standing communication channel will help address that. If you do that then everything should run smoothly.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the visionary, product owner, sole member of an LLC developing a refund management platform that will potentially plug into Shopify, Google Commerce, BigCommerce, and other e-commerce platforms.

What challenge were you trying to address with S-PRO?

I have 10 years of experience in e-commerce operations and software and came up with the concept myself. I put together a lot of the user stories and research, along with the product specifications, but I didn’t have committed, available engineers to build the product

I realized that I’d rather find a good agency than search for a co-founder, so I gave the work to S-PRO.

What was the scope of their involvement?

S-PRO scoped out costs and a timeline for an MVP or basic proof-of-concept of my idea. 

The first two months were focused on scoping and discovery. They determined the requirements as well as micro-services and APIs we’d need to use. During the process, they asked clarifying questions to scope out the level of effort it would take to complete the work. 

The deliverables for the discovery phase were an architectural diagram, a product roadmap, a full cost estimate, and a staffing assessment to assign teammates to the work.

After I had a chance to review the plan of attack, I engaged them on the development side of the equation, which we’ve been doing for the past 5–6 months.

S-PRO is acting as my in-house engineering team. I participate in sprint planning with them, let them do the work, and review their progress. They come up with solutions, do unit testing, and iterate until the product is built.

The development deliverables were a custom Shopify app with a frontend UI/UX for the signup process as well as a backend Django admin database. These three elements had to be integrated together along with multiple third-party APIs outside of Shopify.

I provided them with calculations I invented in Excel spreadsheets, so they could turn them into code. They took my formulas and created custom components and calculations within the product.

What is the team composition? 

A common misconception I had about agencies was that I thought I’d just get one engineer of theirs to work with me. Instead, I paid the money and got a lot for it, including a project manager, a business analyst, one frontend engineer, one backend engineer, a DevOps engineer, and a QA testing engineer. 

I didn’t get them full-time, but they were there when I needed them. S-PRO communicated upfront that this would be the team makeup.

I got access to certain resource types but wasn’t assigned to specific people. For instance, I got a QA engineer, but that could’ve meant getting one person for a month and then another person for the next month.

How did you come to work with S-PRO?

I heard about them through the software firm I was working for at the time. We saw firms from Ukraine and Poland, that would submit partnership requests for e-commerce, and I remember seeing S-PRO’s name.

I knew I couldn’t get my software built in the United States with the timeline and budget I wanted.  for the budget I wanted. The agencies over here would’ve demanded an insane amount of money, and it would’ve been a very slow process. I was confident in the professionalism and the English skills of the offshore companies I considered. 

I was wondering what the Yelp! of software firms was, a place where I could find legitimate and well-thought-through reviews. I found Clutch, and what I loved about it was that it had a really nice directory, with reviews that had the same types of questions across them. It allowed me to compare experiences across project sizes similar to mine.

I wanted a partner that would work with my early morning work schedule, and Eastern Europe had the optimal time zone for me. I zeroed in on Poland and Ukraine-based companies. After looking at companies recommended by Clutch, I zeroed in further on Ukraine and found S-PRO.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost is around $70,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I reached out to them in May 2020, but we didn’t start the discovery phase until June 2020. We were starting development by summer 2020 and will likely wrap up in March 2021.

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

In a project like this, we could only plan so much. So, some roadblocks and changes came up along the way. S-PRO is a team of big thinkers. They don’t just brainstorm on their own, they figure out solutions with the client. We haven’t tracked velocity numbers of project management metrics, so we don’t have any hard metrics at this point.

How did S-PRO perform from a project management standpoint?

I knew that setting a hard deadline would strain my relationship with any agency I worked with. I gave S-PRO an open-ended deadline and a set budget. They use a time-and-materials approach to project management, which allowed me to understand how much we needed to spend on each part of the program: backend, frontend, Shopify components, third-party integrations, and more.

They gave me a Gantt chart detailing what efforts we were pursuing in certain timeframes. They alert quickly if there was an overrun. I had a hawk-eye on the budget to see if they could make it work financially. S-PRO did a good job with that.

I have solid communication with their project manager. We have regular check-ins, and I invited them to a Slack channel. We’re able to collaborate effectively there. They left messages late at night that I could get to in my early mornings. If we had to jump on a call, I would wake up early. However, they can accommodate an American time zone or stay within their own.

They’ve shared stories with me on Jira at times, but I didn’t want to micromanage them on that platform. I knew what I wanted and how it could be done. I just needed them to do it.

We’re sharing my Google Drive for documentation. If I don’t understand something or can’t communicate in written form, I’ll do a screen recording and upload it to Drive. Zoom calls also helped a lot with clarity.

We didn’t use fancy tools. We communicated really well. People may think that project management quality is dependent on tools. That’s not necessarily true; It’s a project manager’s responsibility.

What did you find most impressive about them?

S-PRO stood out because of their interest in the project. They had a good sales manager and team. He made our time to talk goal-focused and followed up a lot. Unlike other sales managers I talked to, he didn’t talk about the budget. He asked what I was trying to accomplish.

S-PRO aimed to understand my goals and thoughts before sending me minimum hours and estimates like other companies. Before they did the actual discovery, they spent a few days educating me on components of the project, such as hosting costs, front- and backend development, integrations, and more. Even though I had a sense of direction for my project, S-PRO drove the specifics. Instead of scaring me with a made-up cost, they figured it out together with me. The more we collaborated, the more transparent the cost became.

It’s the little things that create connections with clients and help to earn business. That’s why I went with S-PRO. The first thing the other vendors spoke about was money. If cost was the only thing they cared about, they weren’t going to perform well. With S-PRO, there was an interest in the project and mutual respect and communication. The project was expensive, but it was justified.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Especially with COVID, they should figure out which tools work for them. We ended up using Zoom, but there are other video recording and sharing tools coming out that could save tons of time.

In the beginning, we weren’t even sure about using Slack and were communicating over email. If the client doesn’t understand what communication tools to use, S-PRO should give them direction. Clients may act like they know what they’re doing when they don’t and don’t want to admit it. They should be given a slight nudge as well as options on tools to try out. Slack worked out well, but I think there may have been other tools that they wanted to use but didn’t communicate it.

It was a good experience overall. I’ve worked with other software firms, but S-PRO hit it out of the park.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

It’s important to really understand what you want. Coming in with general requirements isn’t enough. The client needs to come in with examples of integrations that work together, tasks that are accomplished by user journeys, diagrams, and so on. It can cost the client a lot of money if they go to the agency expecting them to do everything. More importantly, it can cause frustration, and it’ll be the client’s fault.

Often, clients come in with vague requirements and a set deadline, asking for the work to be done fast and for cheap. I did the opposite: I gave them a budget, but I didn’t give them a deadline, and I was very specific as to what I needed.

Having functional requirements in place up front helps a lot. If a client doesn’t have that, S-PRO can help create them. It comes at a cost, but they’re capable of doing it.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the owner of a dog selling website in Australia.

For what projects/services did your company hire S-PRO, and what were your goals?

Our goal of creating a peer to peer dog selling market place started 2 years before S-PRO started. We had hired 3 other web development companies who all failed. We were looking to work with someone who was innovative and practiced an agile way of implementing our goals.

We were also looking for some who would get the job done without us holding their hand and telling them what to do, because we dont know how to create a website to this magnitude.

How did you select S-PRO and what were the deciding factors?

That's exactly what SPRO was able to do for us. They we professional, reliable, innovative, independent, fast yet efficient. Their attention to detail was spot on which is really hard to find in foreign companies. Now we continue to work with them and can't imagine hiring anyone else to help us grow our business.

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

The entire website had to be designed from UX to UI. We needed two different customer pathways, one for buyers and one for sellers. We needed a complicated payment process simplified which included several steps from deposits, final payments and picking up puppy, all of which would be controlled under escrow.

We needed a pathway for sellers to post different types of advertisements. We needed a peer to peer message center for users to use. Reviews, complaints, FAQ, and information pages. We needed an admin panel for us to collect data.

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

Project manager 2 developers UX and UI designer Business analyst Overseer

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

The website is working perfectly. the SPRO team included bug fixing and testing for 30 days after launch and during this stage they were really good at ensuring everything was working perfectly. We had a number of people sign up within the first week without any problems. The website is exactly as we imagined, if not better. We are really really happy with the end result.

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

We had weekly meeting, at the beginning we had 2 meetings a week. We were also communicating daily when needed through slack.

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

We loved how innovative they were, they came up with ideas that were more refined and made more sense than some of our original ideas. We loved how committed and passionate they all were toward the project, as if they owned the business with us. We really appreciate the ongoing management too.

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

Nope, we love these guys! 10/10

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and founder of nect World. We created a solution that enables business professionals to be connected to secure, reliable internet on their laptop whenever and wherever needed.

What challenge were you trying to address with S-PRO?

We needed help with custom software development.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed our desktop app. We have our own hardware that we developed in-house. It’s a modem that allows you to connect to the internet. We used S-PRO to develop software that would allow our customers to change settings and purchase data plans through an API. They set up our own VPN servers and created an admin panel that allows us to provide customer support and change the settings of the system itself. They used Electron, a cross-platform app.

They had a cool onboarding process where we had a few workshops where we outlined the project stages.  We had a few 3-4 hour meetings where we outlined all the tasks and created a wireframe for our project. The launch date is set right now for mid-January, but we might continue working with them as a support team.

What is the team composition?

There’s the project manager, front- and backend developers, a QA tester, a designer, an Electron programmer, and a business analyst. My main point of contact is the project manager.

How did you come to work with S-PRO?

I met one of their sales reps at a conference a long time ago. We didn’t need the software development at that point but when we needed them, I reached out to my network. 

S-PRO provided the most simple onboarding process and was able to work alongside us to create a wireframe. They were a bit higher priced than some other competitors but their personal approach and onboarding process definitely made up for that.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2020, and the work is ongoing.

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

The goal was to have them develop both effectively and efficiently. The main metric was how far below the estimate they could go.

How did S-PRO perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate via Slack and weekly meetings, where we check their progress from the past week. We work in sprints with a general timeline and price estimate to guide the project. Our spend with them was always lower than the amount of the job already done. We were happy with their work.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their personal approach for us as a startup was impressive. We weren’t always able to provide the perfect wireframe and specification. They worked with us to develop those.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Sometimes there could be better communication. Since we worked in sprints and requested changes, there were 1–2 times where there was some miscommunication. It’s very minor, though.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Allow them to introduce you to their processes. Try to integrate with their process, allowing you to have the highest quality work. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO and co-founder for an energy data company. We provide intelligence around data in energy markets and are focused on flexible energy production in the UK.

What challenge were you trying to address with S-PRO?

They’re our nearshore software development partner.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They outlined the specifications for a web app that delivers data, insight, and intelligence for our users. We spent 4–6 weeks on planning and then we moved into development. We then started working on the frontend and backend database.

What is the team composition?

We work with a project manager, who works on our team full-time,  a business analyst, a solutions architect, a UX/UI designer, two frontend engineers, and two backend engineers.

How did you come to work with S-PRO?

We put out a competitive tender for European developers. We started with a shortlist and narrowed it down to three companies. We met with S-PRO’s CEO, CTO, customer success manager, and a few of their technical leads. In that meeting, we went over what we were looking for and what services they provided. We really like that they were forward-thinking and their team seemed to be happy in their positions. They were very flexible as well and everything was up for discussion.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent roughly €200,000 (approximately $240,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2020 and the project is ongoing.

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

They’ve been able to resolve bugs and manage the backlog. Now we’re able to provide a product for our paying users and have attracted new customers. Feedback has been really positive. Now we have an attractive and easy to use frontend. The platform is simple and intuitive, which is fantastic.

How did S-PRO perform from a project management standpoint?

They did really well and were able to deliver on time and on budget. We’re constantly making changes to the scope and adjusting our priorities, but S-PRO is very good at managing and documenting any changes. Before COVID-19, we met with them in person every sprint, so about every two weeks.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re extremely flexible and have been patient as we make changes to our scope. They’re also good at taking on new concepts like energy market data.  After the planning phase, they were able to provide input, which has had a positive impact on users. They recommended features that weren’t on our product roadmap, but they’ve become an imperative part of our product. They add a lot of value.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could streamline the approval process around resource planning and information, particularly on feature changes. Whilst S-PRO was flexible, getting changes approved was a little frustrating.

On occasion, we could have improved communication, particularly between preproduction and production phases. However, there hasn’t been a significant issue.

They’ve missed a few English grammar issues as well, but the mistakes were very minimal.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Get to know the project manager and solutions architect because strong communication is key. I would encourage people to go in person as regularly s possible so they can talk with the development team.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and chairman of Ad Astra Wellbeing, a company based in London. Ad Astra’s a meditation app. Our partners upload content to the network that’s accessed by users. Partners receive royalties calculated based on subscription costs and split with the company.

What challenge were you trying to address with S-PRO?

We hired S-PRO to develop our app.

What was the scope of their involvement?

S-PRO built our app for Android and iOS. Their team also created a web panel for partners to upload content.

What is the team composition?

Although I only communicated with the project manager, around five people from S-PRO worked on this project.

How did you come to work with S-PRO?

I researched quite a few companies and read reviews on Clutch as well as other platforms. I reached out to seven companies in total, and S-PRO replied quickly. They were transparent and not only provided an estimate but also a basic mockup of the app. That showed their dedication to working with me. Their sales manager was excellent and answered all my questions too.

How much have you invested with them?

I’ve spent around $50,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started to talk in August, but the work started in September 2019. The project concluded in early-June 2020, but I’m still in touch with them for server upgrades and other maintenance work.

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

I’m quite happy with the app and partner panel developed by S-PRO. This has no connection with S-PRO, but I haven’t secured as many downloads as I’d like, which involves marketing.

How did S-PRO perform from a project management standpoint?

We used WhatsApp and email to communicate. I only communicated with one person, which made the process easier for me.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was happy with their flexibility. I decided to add and remove features as development went on, and S-PRO did everything I requested.

Are there any areas they could improve?

As I’ve only worked with one mobile developer, I don’t have the means for comparison. However, I’m satisfied. I’d recommend S-PRO to anyone who asked me about a good developer.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a science and material innovation company rethinking biology and reimagining the world. A World Economic Forum Tech Pioneer, we partner with nature to create never-before imagined materials and products across industries – from agriculture to electronics, consumer care to pharmaceuticals, and more. Our company creates sustainable materials that are in use today, delivering value for Fortune 1000 companies with over $1 billion worth of products using Zymergen microbial innovations sold to date. At Zymergen we make tomorrow. I am the Technical Lead of the Zymergen Navigator for Chemistry project.

For what projects/services did your company hire S-PRO?

We needed to create a best-in-class internal tool for exploring biological chemical spaces. This required a top-to-bottom integration of databases, services, and client interfaces. We partnered with S-Pro to develop the website our employees would use to make key research decisions around new materials.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goals for this project would be to create a website with a strong core architecture that could support future enhancements in a variety of dimensions. It needed to support powerful query semantics but be presented in a user-friendly interface. It needed to interact with a variety of backend services and provide a cohesive view of it all.

How did you select this vendor?

We explored and interviewed a variety of vendors. We were drawn to S-Pro's based on their professionalism in interviews, their portfolio of projects that included sufficiently complex state, and their company size and stability.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The project began with us creating mockups and specifications for the first few phases of the project. We then worked with them to set up the codebase and create the first few proof of concept deliverables to demonstrate all the services communicating effectively. During this time we worked through overall architecture patterns, state management, testing requirements, code quality expectations, communications, and project tracking. S-Pro has been able to work with specifications of varying detail and work independently to propose solutions and implement them.

What was the team composition?

We had some initial churn on developers until we found developers with the right skillsets. We now have two developers working full-time on the project and they peer-review code prior to us taking a final review before merging. We had to change project managers once, but overall the project management has been very stable. We also have a part time QA engineer verifying changes.

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

The project has been well-received by a number of internal teams and is quickly becoming a critical internal tool. It is used internally as a case-study in future development patterns.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We created JIRA tickets to represent the units of work we wanted implemented and kept them sorted in priority order. We relied on their project management to then select and assign those tickets as necessary. They would peer-review code and get QA verification before we were given final review. We maintained an ongoing Slack channel for live discussion as well as a weekly meeting on Zoom.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I've been most impressed with S-Pro's ability to be self-directed. We can give them detailed specifications or just a rough idea of what we want and they are able to make their own appropriate judgement calls on tradeoffs to give us a great initial solution quickly. We can then iterate as necessary to get the final implementation. In some cases we have been able to present them with the only the overall problem we are attempting to solve and they are able to generate a solution from scratch. In other cases we are able to work with them to discuss deeper architectural tradeoffs and make an informed decisions about them.

Are there any areas for improvement?

In general they've matched or exceeded our expectations. There are a number of challenges associated with developing a complex internal application externally, but S-Pro has done quite well at adapting to our needs. We occasionally needed to realign on what we're looking for in terms of speed versus thoroughness of each change, but that's about it.