The Software House

Please describe your organization.

Our company is a mobile wallet service. We have flipped the shopping cart upside down and made payments a lot faster and more secure.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I’m a project manager.

What was your goal for working with Software House?

They started by helping us with an MVP, a prototype and model to present to investors to show them the concept actually works, and it would be well used. They did such an amazing job we kept them on as a full-time extension of our team and they are doing a lot of the core development today. 

Please describe the scope of their work.

It’s only development work.

What was your process for selecting Software House with which to work?

I found them through a CTO of a major gaming company in New York. He recommended these guys. They turned out to be really amazing. I’ve done outsourcing before through Canada, Russia, India, and Ukraine. 

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

[It was] $1 million to $10 million

When was the work completed?

It’s open ended and we’re growing the partnership in 2015. 

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

I do, but I can’t release that because we’re still in a stealth beta mode. I can tell you that they’ve completed a Web application in Android and iPhone, a native mobile Web app all within the last 15 months that have been used by less than a million users with no complaints.

Are you satisfied with their performance?

In the beginning, I was leery about using outsourced work again. But, the MVP [minimum viable product] that they did was really amazing. We used two of their developers with two of our developers here. We really liked them because they weren’t code monkeys. They didn’t just ask for tasks and then complete them. They actually put thought into it. Within the first three weeks, one of the developers told me I was wrong and that this was not how we should do it. That earned my respect because he was right. I appreciated that. I trusted him to do it a different way. He showed a faster, quicker, and more secure way.

Is there anything unique about Software House that really makes them stand out, compared to other online marketing companies?

They have the ability to work with other third-party integrators. Because we’re a thin tech company, we have to deal with Visa, MasterCard and a lot of banks and other security companies associated with it. I never have to have a three-way call or a forwarded email. I’m comfortable with them talking directly to those third parties directly. There was no language barrier. They definitely go above and beyond in that area as well.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

They’re doing such great work, and we’re constantly asking for more people. The ramp up time to get a new person or a new quote on a new person creates a delay. It can take 30 to 35 days to find a person since they only bring in really qualified resources. That can create a headache for us since we want to scale faster.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the ceo of the company

For what projects/services did your company hire The Software House, and what were your goals?

We wanted to refresh a platform and build it again

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

From references of friends

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

Front and backed development

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

4-5 front and backend developers and project manager

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

It was as delivered

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

Friendly and efficient

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

Ease of communication

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

Maybe quicker allocations

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a CTO at a SaaS company in the travel market. We want to ensure the best possible holiday experience for all. We do this by providing white-label apps to travel agencies and Touroperators that allows them to offer a seamless travel experience to their clients. We provide trip information, advice from travel professionals and other travelers and a photo book share option.

For what projects/services did your company hire The Software House?

We hired a DevOps team to set up cloud infrastructure based on AWS and migrate the current solution from Heroku in order to improve the scalability and security of the entire platform.

What were your goals for this project?

To create a stable and scalable and of course secure environment, complete the transition with minimum downtime, improve monitoring as well as the performance of the whole solution.

How did you select this vendor?

I found TSH’s profile on Clutch and realized that their strengths and quality maybe what I needed in my project. Their experience in AWS, Google Cloud Storage, Docker, Jenkins or Kubernetes was noticeable. I also appreciated the fact that we were able to meet in person in Amsterdam and they happen to be there quite often.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The scope included many expert DevOps services, in particular: creating Dockers for the web app, preparing deployment scripts for Lambda's, setup correct VPN's, Redis and DB instances and other work on the AWS platform, integrating with third-party apps and more. This all in such a way that it is repeatable and deployments are fully automated.

What was the team composition?

We had a DevOps team of four people and a project manager.

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

The main reasoning behind the project was to take full advantage of the power the modern AWS infrastructure offers for performance and security. TSH developers were able to get us where we wanted, eliminating bugs and improving monitoring in the process. It will help us to deploy faster and saver by using continuous code checking tools and a fully automated CI/CD setup and future-proving our platform as well.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

During the project, we used JIRA with the Kanban-driven ticket process. We also had daily calls to discuss progress and blockers and the day-to-day communication was based on Slack. Overall, I consider the management and communication to be smooth.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Attention to detail. Proactive attitude. Quality of the developers. But most of all the pasion to deliver a high quality result.

Are there any areas for improvement?

The team met all of my expectations during this particular project so it’s difficult for me to say.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My company builds, designs, and supports charitable and other positive organizations. I’m the head of a division within the firm that provides services and support to those organizations through technology.

What challenge were you trying to address with The Software House?

We were looking for a company to provide additional support to our technical team on a major project.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We were working to develop a specific software for a large UK bank’s grant program. The solution was complicated and expensive, so we relied on The Software House’s specific technical development and program management expertise. They’re effectively the entire development team, offering full-stack support and design services.

We provide the specifications and requirements, based on our own client, and monitor their work to ensure everyone is aligned. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with a team of 13 people, including a dedicated project manager. 

How did you come to work with The Software House?

After researching several companies, we decided The Software House’s capabilities exceeded their competitors’. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $300,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with The Software House in May 2019, and the project is ongoing.

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

The team has done a fantastic job. The quality of work we were able to deliver to our client couldn’t have been achieved without The Software House.

The solution is reliable and functional, and our client is extremely pleased with it.

How did The Software House perform from a project management standpoint?

They perform very well. The project manager makes dealing with the rather large team easy and simple.

The Software House delivers all their work on time and within budget. We track the project on Jira, communicate through Slack, and employ Zeplin and InVision as well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The Software House is far more diligent and conscientious than other agencies I’ve worked with in the past. They often come up with potential issues and solutions for those issues before they even arise, which is incredibly helpful. 

It’s evident that the whole team is engaged with the project. If there are delays on the client’s side, they make a concerted effort to still deliver work within deadline. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing that comes to mind. We’re very happy with the quality of work they’re providing and don’t want them to do anything differently.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be very clear about what’s required in your engagement, and work with them to ensure they understand the project.