20miles

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We're a software startup focused on reinventing mobile DevOps, offering a continuous integration and distribution tool with an artifact manager. I'm a project manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire 20miles?

After conducting market research and securing funds, we identified a complex challenge that needed external mobile development experience. We decided to outsource this critical job to professionals.

What were your goals for this project?

Our clients previously had several options: depend on a cloud service, build an expensive proprietary solution, or use an open-source solution that required continuous support. We wanted to combine the best of these worlds to make DevOps easy and economical. 

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We weren't looking for developers who would finish the project and run away. We needed a long-term partner who could share our vision and contribute to a valuable solution. We also needed a team that could create a product with passion and perfect it to the highest standard. 

We searched for vendors online, reviewed their portfolios, and scheduled interviews with 15 companies. Our whole team was involved, since we were about to outsource our core business process. The deciding factors were simple: professional competency, ability to listen, proven track of experience with our stack, and the ability to share our vision and intuitively suggest technologies. 

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

We had initial guidelines and drafts to help with the selection process. We did expect vendors to challenge it and provide suggestions. Our initial vision pivoted to deliver more accurate business value to our clients.

The 20miles team did a great job of challenging our initial concept and writing professional articles to test it in the market. We reached out to 10,000 potential customers who reviewed our solution and gave valuable feedback. This required through research on similar solutions to see where we could do better.

20miles built the whole project. They designed wireframes and mockups and delivered proper testing and support. We created an internal website to formulate our sales funnel, but they developed the core concept. They used the following tech stack: Golang, Pure Ruby, Postgresql, Docker, Bash, Redis, Homebrew, Fastlane, Gitlab API, Github API, and Bitbucket API. 

What was the team composition?

We had seven developers, one designer, and two QA testers, but that number was flexible. We requested this flexibility, since we knew the project would slow down initially and speed up when we initiated discussions with our customers. Having a fixed team wasn't ideal, as we were also pivoting and adjusting during the development process.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We efficiently pivoted our idea and released it before the final deadline. The team gave us all the support we requested. As previously mentioned, rigorous planning and flexibility were crucial to this project. After two years, we are still working with them.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Unlike some vendors, 20miles pushed hard on the planning side and happily remained fully transparent. We could always access their board to see how many developers were assigned to each task. They also assigned a project manager who stayed in touch with me and the team.

We had read access to their Jira, GitLab, weekly Skype calls, and bi-weekly meetings. We had full control over their progress and quickly reacted if anything needed attention. 

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The quality we value in any business relationship is trust. Through their constructive and polite approach, 20miles made it clear from the beginning that we could trust them. Their attention to detail and sincere passion for improvement were astonishing. We also highly valued their flexibility and transparency. They didn't just fully meet our expectations; they exceeded them significantly.

Are there any areas for improvement?

A successful project is hard to criticize. We always want things to be finished more cheaply and quickly. However, they met our own price and time estimates.

Some of the developers were offshore. In an ideal world, we would want them in our office, but that's not how this industry works. We didn't have any communication problems.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

The company does research and production of equipment in microelectronics. A client in education project Mobile App PM was our corporate education department. I am a head of project management.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire 20miles?

Together with the SME business development corporation we planned to open several educational direction, including IT product management. This led us to hiring mobile app developers.

What were your goals for this project?

To bring this project to life we had to use help of professionals with experience in mobile app development and web services that could create an educational program with necessary adaptation towards corporate nuaces.

We wanted them to describe all the hidden problems and best practices, answer questions on how to bring the development team together, how to organise development process and assess risks.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

One of our business partners introduced us to the team.

Describe the project in detail.

The team developed media content in a form of a number of images, texts, tests, stories, schemas and graphs that we integrated in our corporate platform.

What was the team composition?

PM: 3 Analyst: 1

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It was vital for us to get MVP of the educational program ready in the most shortest timeframe - 2 weeks. During the development stage, analysts of 20miles team attended other educational coferences, researched our industry, corporate culture and requirements after which we had implememted it with the minimal amount of changes.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We have been introduced to a quite efficient format that included face to face meetings with employees that were used to discuss and agree on all project questions that ended up saving us a lot of time, avoiding too much of an electronic messages.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The ability of analysts to get into corporate culture and quite quickly formulate very precise requirements without any bureaucracy.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We think that the team could have created their own educational course within the area of mobile development. Share it with the clients and promote it as a dedicated, separate product.