eTeam

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of product at an early-stage startup working on a women’s health app.

What challenge were you trying to address with eTeam?

We first launched the app about two years ago in iOS. It was written in Swift, so it could only be deployed in iOS. We worked with eTeam to build the app in React Native, a cross-platform language, so we could deploy it on Android and iOS with a shared code base.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They are replicating the current iOS app in React Native, so we provided all of the materials that we already had from the Swift app and gave them access to the code.

It’s a daily wellness and cycle tracker. eTeam has built functionality that tracks the user’s menstrual cycle through their calendar. They’ve also featured all of the visual content, such as the text, images, and videos from the iOS app that are specific to where the user is in their cycle. This gives users a better understanding of what’s happening with their hormones and allows them to track symptoms across multiple days.

What is the team composition?

We had one full-time and one part-time developer, a part-time QA engineer, and a part-time project manager.

How did you come to work with eTeam?

They were recommended to us by a startup in the UK. They had worked with eTeam in the past and said they were flexible and had an integrated approach within teams.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $32,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

eTeam started working with January 2021 and launched it in April, but our partnership is ongoing. We just signed another six-month contract to keep iterating on the app.

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

We met our initial goal and were able to release the MVP on Android, but we still have a few features to build before we can launch it on iOS. Our CTO has reviewed some of the code, and she is very confident in the quality of their work. We will have more success metrics over the next couple of months as we look at the stability of the app and how many issues come up.

How did eTeam perform from a project management standpoint?

Overall, it has been a great partnership. There were a couple of hiccups, but they rectified them quickly. When we needed them to, they removed people from the project and found replacements quickly so it didn’t impact the delivery dates. Now we’re working with a seasoned team member who makes us feel confident that they’ll do a good job.

We primarily use Slack to communicate, but we have a Zoom call once a week to check in with them and go through sprint demonstration.

What did you find most impressive about them?

This was my first time working with a third party on an app development project, and several people warned me against it because things could go wrong. However, I was pleasantly surprised by eTeam. We figured out how to work together and our partnership has been quite successful, so they will be our solution going forward.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could ask more questions. They seemed a little apprehensive to take up too much of our time by asking questions. However, it would have been more efficient in the long run if they had asked for clarification sooner.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Know what you need and what you want from the onset to avoid trial and error. If it’s not clear what your expectations are, there will be hiccups.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Chief technology officer at Kissmetrics, a person-based product and marketing analytics company

For what projects/services did your company hire eTeam, and what were your goals?

We hired eTeam to augment our team in our devops and infrastructure modernization efforts.

How did you select eTeam and what were the deciding factors?

eTeam proved capable of handling progressively more complex projects over time, and we now entrust them for large-scale modernization efforts.

They have consistently delivered in a timely fashion, they communicate and comprehend clearly, the management is very proactive and transparent, and they onboard and operate quickly and independently.

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

We have been modernizing a vast legacy infrastructure running in the cloud on legacy VMs so that all services are now containerized and running in a container orchestrator. Additionally, we are modernizing our CI/CD pipelines to improve deployment times and our rate of iteration.

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

Over time, we have worked with a total of three software engineers and two project managers.

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

eTeam has made tremendous progress migrating our legacy services to a modern infrastructure. We are wrapping up the migration now, and we expect to be fully transitioned to the new architecture in the coming months.

This allowed our team to deal with daily maintenance and focus on features we otherwise would not have been able to, trusting that progress was being made on an entirely new infrastructure which will vastly improve our productivity.

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

Standard agile development cycle with a weekly sync. We communicate over slack and via task management software. Their timelines have been very reasonable. I imagine they would adopt their style to the environment as needed.

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

They are able to execute independently, which helps save our bandwidth for the other issues we're inundated with.

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

N/A

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m in senior business development at a B2B payment gateway in Indonesia. We serve Indonesia and the Philippines.

What challenge were you trying to address with eTeam?

We needed to develop a mobile app because we don’t have mobile developers in-house.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve been working with them on a mobile app project. We started from scratch. They started with an MVP that we needed for audits. That finished in December, but we’re still working with them now to get the MVP to go live. 

The interfaces we’re working on for iOS and Android app and an admin dashboard. We are using native iOS and Android tech stacks. On the backend, we use Node.js and Typescript. We are running it on AWS, and we’re using PostgreSQL.

What is the team composition?

We started out with one iOS developer, one Android developer, one QA, one backend, one full-stack, and one project manager. Since then, we’ve grown the team. 

We’ve added another iOS and Android developer and another QA. Right now, we’re in the middle of adding more personnel. We will end up having an additional iOS developer, Android developer, and backend developer.

How did you come to work with eTeam?

I found them through Clutch. Their reviews caught my attention. I talked to multiple dev houses in Ukraine, India, and Indonesia. eTeam understood our requirements best.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $160,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

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

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

eTeam met the hard deadline for the MVP. The fact that we achieved that is the first success. They also helped us by working overtime and on the weekends which we compensated after. A success metric going forward will be on reliability of the app and on time production.

How did eTeam perform from a project management standpoint?

We used Slack. We have shared channels, and I have direct messages with the project manager when needed. We also use Jira. Typically, the project requirements come from me as the product owner. Then the project manager is the one who makes the towel pass.

What did you find most impressive about them?

eTeam really understands our business needs and the needs of a startup. That’s very unique to them after talking to quite a bit of companies. They don’t feel like a contractor. From the founders to the project manager and the developers, they’re aligned with what we’re trying to achieve whether its timing or product quality.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

We believe in continuous improvement. There are things we’re still trying to improve in how we work together with them. One of the things the project manager is working on right now is on estimations. 

It’s not their fault because during an audit MVP, we put that on hold. Something we can do better moving forward is our estimates for each sprint. We have no complaints on our side.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

We’ve learned to give them the overview of your business goals and also what you’re working towards. They’re able to give the best advice on how to approach the development and the technical side too.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the development manager at BlueSnap, a global payment processor.

What challenge were you trying to address with eTeam?

BlueSnap acquired a company and we needed to build a team to grow it.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They provide team management, software development, and hiring support. They continue to work on our core product and were able to integrate it with our new partner's product. It's an invoice management and automation system, and they use Ruby on Rails, React, and JavaScript. 

What is the team composition?

There are quite a few recruiters, HR, account managers, and the founders.

How did you come to work with eTeam?

I personally knew the founders.

How much have you invested with them?

We have spent $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

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

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

They’re building one of our core platforms right now. Everyone is happy with their work.

How did eTeam perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is good. I have nothing to complain about. We use Jira, a Slack channel, email, and weekly calls with management to maintain communication. With COVID-19, they handled everything to make sure everyone on the team could work remotely.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re really focused and goal-oriented. They tried to understand our exact needs. They do their best to support us in all ways that they can: with resources, administrative support, and technical expertise.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’re happy with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re a really good partner that’s really comfortable to work with. Even if you don’t have a clear vision, they will help you build a vision and narrow down what you want.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We’re working to make money better—for everyone. Whether it’s your paycheck, pension, or piggybank savings, money matters to us all.

So, rather than relying on banks—with their fees, delays, and fraud risk—we stand for money without limits. That’s why we support Bitcoin Cash, a global digital currency that only you can control.

For what projects/services did your company hire eTeam, and what were your goals?

We hired eTeam to work on Bitcoin.com Maps. The simplest way for users from across the globe to find places to spend their cryptocurrency in person.

The goal of the project was to create an improved experience for mobile and desktop users, in addition to supplying a developer friendly api to be used by 3rd parties and internally across our other product lines.

We also required an administrative dashboard for our support team to more easily manage location moderation.

How did you select eTeam and what were the deciding factors?

We selected eTeam based on their recommendations from peers who have worked with their team in the past. After several interviews both with management and engineering it was clear we found the right fit.

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

Use cases: User is looking for a store nearby

View: map with the viewport of 20 minutes walking distance from the current location if stores exist. If stores don’t exist, an overlay message stating that with options to search for another location List of stores with address, ratings and (if possible) distance to them Link to Google Maps navigation (via android intent or url launcher)

User searching for a store in arbitrary location Search is done via google maps Results are displayed in the same fashion as use case 1 User adding a store Search for store name and/or address

Results are retrieved from Google Places Adding a store sends the information to moderator User receives a push notification if store is approved

User receives a push notification and a message if store is declined User reporting an issue with the store Store name + list of common issues if possible (e.g. Bitcash is not accepted)

Issue is sent to moderator When issue is resolved, a push notification is received with the message from moderator User commenting on the store Each comment includes rank of the store and a text comment (from the standpoint of bitcash operation) If moderator removes the comment, user receives push notification with the reason

Actor: moderator Use cases: Moderator reviews stores added by community Requests are grouped by google place ID/name so that multiple requests can be confirmed/declined at once If declined by moderator, additional message is required that will be sent to all users submitting the request (message can be done via presets)

Moderator reviews issues Process similar to above Moderator can take down the store from the app if the issue is confirmed The result of issue review contains a message from moderator

Store list management Moderator has the same lookup interface as the user In addition to the user’s features moderator is able to take down stores listed Managing comments Moderator can remove a comment from the store if he finds it inappropriate or irrelevant. When doing so he is required to provide a reason which is sent to the user who left the comment

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

We worked a team of 5 from eTeam, including a project manager, and four engineers who supplied frontend development, backend development, api development, along with quality assurance.

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

Succssfully rebranded the project from Marco Coino to Bitcoin.com Maps Increased the speed at which new listings were added to Bitcoin.com Maps

Delivered full functioning mobile-friendly maps with submit listing functionality, and marker spidering for locations with large clusters of stores in a small geographical footprint (ie malls)

Delivered a full featured developer api for internal and external use Developed and provided staging and production servers for all features Developed an advanced administrative dashboard for our internal support team to easily moderate locations

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

The project management style suited our organization structure very well at Bitcoin.com. We held two weekly meetings to go over project milestones, and another to demo the progress made by their team each week.

Regular contact with their team was held via a shared Slack channel, in addition to regular emails. Communication was professional and insightful. eTeam went above and beyond in considering all possible use cases for an enhanced map to showcase stores/locations accepting cryptocurrency.

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

Very high level of quality of engineering. Our internal engineers have had a great time working with their deliverables. Their communication style and organization was terrific in working with two internal product managers along with designers.

Their flexibility with our often busy schedule was greatly appreciated, but more important than all of this was their complete ability to follow through on requests, along with setting very clear expectations and delivering high quality results.

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

I'm unaware of any ways they could have improved.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am CTO with Genie, a recruitment company bringing together clients with candidates at pace using machine learnt algorithms available on the web and mobile devices.

For what projects/services did your company hire eTeam, and what were your goals?

We required eTeam to take an early beta of our product and re-architect and engineer it for enterprise with the ability to scale. Additionally we required a full iOS and Android application to be built from the ground up using the new technology.

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

We sourced eTeam after a recommendation and interview process and were impressed with their credentials and ability to evidence previous work they had completed using our required technology platforms.

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

We required eTeam to re-engineer a legacy PHP code base sitting on Google cloud, move it to AWS, refactoring the code utilising Lambda, AWS Lex for chat and ensuring services and functions were available via API. Backend database schema changes were also required during migration.

eTeam also built from the ground up iOS and Android applications utilising the new architecture also providing the design expertise necessary for both application and web layouts.

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

At various times the team scales as to our requirements but a core team exists consisting of a project manager, account manager, back end developer, front end developer, QA engineer & mobile developer.

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

Both the internal team and our customers have expressed their praise for the design and build quality of the application and web interfaces produced by the team. Transitioning to a mobile application, facilitated by eTeam, has greatly improved our ability to directly engage with customers and clients, improving response times and assisting with revenue generation.

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

eTeam are very transparent in their management style, holding regular update meetings and working together on sprint goals, metrics and progress. We are always able to input and find the team responsive to our needs with a genuine desire to assist us in meeting deadlines.

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

eTeam have a truly collaborative approach to working with us, feeling like a part of our team with a real understanding that we succeed together.

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

At every point where there have been any issues, eTeam were swift to address and rectify.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am Chief Operating Officer @OPEN B GATEWAY LIMITED.

For what projects/services did your company hire eTeam?

Starting from the ground up, we needed to develop an online platform that takes advantage of the Open Banking initiative. Our clients are finance lenders - we help them by securely sharing the online banking data of their prospective borrowers so that they can check that the borrower can afford the monthly loan repayments. The borrower benefits by not being burdened with debt they cannot afford, and our client benefits by being able to make better credit decisions.

What were your goals for this project?

To develop a secure, streamlined, extensible Open Banking platform.

How did you select this vendor?

First we investigated hiring a team within the UK, but quality and price lead us to investigate outsourcing. We researched various global sites and settled on Ukraine due to time zone, quality and price. This lead us to find 6 potential development partners in Kiev - we booked meetings with each and flew out to Kiev for a week. eTeam immediately stood out to us as being a great fit.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

eTeam have helped with scoping and developing requirements. They are good at taking quite loosely defined requirements, building on them, and turning them into an end product. We believe that outsourcing works best when the outsourced team is not afraid to apply common sense to minor problems, so they can be resolved without input from the hiring side. This approach really takes the pressure off and is invaluable. We run the project in phases, with each phase being broken down into 2 weekly sprints, with a demo at the end of each sprint.

What was the team composition?

1 project manager 2 back-end Golang developers 1 front-end dev 1 QA tester part time devops part time UX

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

We've gone from zero to platform in 6 months.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management is very good. We communicate via Slack. We have a weekly meeting each Monday morning, and a bi-weekly end-of-sprint demo.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The overall quality of the product is very good. And eTeam make it easy my life easier by being able to work independently.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There is very little that could be improved.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of product management for a telecommunications service provider.

What challenge were you trying to address with eTeam?

We needed a company to help with custom software development.

What was the scope of their involvement?

eTeam developed a custom web-based messaging software for us based on specs I wrote and provided for them. The product has both a mobile and web component.

The software text-enables any platform, allowing users to send and receive messages even on those that wouldn’t normally have that capability, like a landline or browser. eTeam wrote the code that enables our app to provide that functionality.

Throughout the project, after I provided the wireframes, they would put together a user interface and I would tweak it.

What is the team composition?

We worked with several different groups throughout the project depending on what our focus was in a given moment. The most we ever worked with was between eight and nine people, which was when we working on databases.

We had a few project managers, a database administrator, and a schedule manager. We also had a business analyst who acted as a liaison to the developers. 

How did you come to work with eTeam?

The relationship was forged before I joined the company, but I know our CTO had engaged with eTeam in 2018. Our company selected them out of about five or six other candidates based on their expertise in mobile and database development.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $250,000 on this engagement.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from January-December 2019. However, once we reach a certain level of sales, we’re going to resume development with eTeam.

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

In the beginning, when they were designing some of the architecture of the product, things went really well. 

Later on, when the team started getting into some of the code, we ran into some challenges with the nuances associated with different US carriers. We had to do a lot of research and relay it back to them because they weren’t as knowledgeable about those protocols.

However, it was the only challenge eTeam had to overcome throughout the project, as they handled all the other development really well.

How did eTeam perform from a project management standpoint?

I was generally satisfied with their project management.

I communicated daily with eTeam’s business analyst, though I did have to dedicate some time and supervision to helping them with basic project management tools and spreadsheets.

What did you find most impressive about them?

eTeam’s work is visually excellent. Their user interface design is the strongest aspect of their work, and they do it exceptionally well. 

 Are there any areas they could improve?

I wish they had been more knowledgeable in terms of communications and protocols. Also, I don’t think their database experience and expertise is as strong as it could be. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The clearer the specifications, the better results you’ll get. The details need to be in there. eTeam needs a little bit of ramp up time, so the more specification you have in the original specs, the better off you’ll be.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our company is an API connection to connect human tasks to AIs. I'm the head of Customer Success.

For what projects/services did your company hire eTeam?

eTeam helped us build the entire API connection, as well as the platform for human tasks.

What were your goals for this project?

To build a complete working API to connect with AI, as well as platform to complete microtasks and massive scale.

How did you select this vendor?

They were a referral to us, and we started with them as a test that actually went so well that we brought them on full time to build our entire platform.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They scoped the entire project, as well as did the development, and even QA in order to ensure that it worked seamlessly.

What was the team composition?

One project manager, one developer, one QA, and their mgmt was also heavily involved.

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

We have a real platform and API today that works, and does exactly what we set out to do. We currently sell the solution.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Yes- we had a point of contact who kept a project plan and kept us updated from week to week.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their teamwork and understanding of what needed to be done in order to get to our end goal was second to none. These guys simply got it, and we couldn't be happier with the end result.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Only thing I would have liked was a more detailed breakdown of what was needed from our side upfront. However, we sorted this out and they helped to guide us through each step.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a co-founder and the CTO of a company that’s developing a suite that helps businesses automate processes like billing, accepting payments, and client communication. 

What challenge were you trying to address with eTeam?

We didn’t have enough resources for development, so we hired eTeam to help us out in that regard.

What was the scope of their involvement?

eTeam set up our AWS cloud infrastructure and handled various development tasks. We’re a Ruby on Rails shop, so most of our parts are built using that language. We also have React.js on the frontend side.

There’s two-way synchronization between our platform and NetSuite, which is the ERP system we use. eTeam built a number of integrations from scratch with payment gateways into the ERP, including Stripe, which allowed us to start accepting payments.

What is the team composition?

I believe we worked with five people in total. We communicated exclusively through the project manager they assigned.

How did you come to work with eTeam?

We went through a number of potential partners and evaluated metrics like quality, attitude, and price. We ended up with eTeam.

How much have you invested with them?

The original estimate was between $25,000–$50,000, however, the total cost ended up being between $50,000–$100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with eTeam around 2017 and collaborated together for about a year.

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

The quality of their code was excellent, and while I can’t share specific stats about our sales, we’ve seen a dramatic increase and have been published on the App Store. We were pleased with how eTeam did their job. 

How did eTeam perform from a project management standpoint?

We used a Scrum methodology. The project manager broke down all features into user stories, explaining to the developers what needed to be done. eTeam controlled the whole process on their end. We used Jira and Confluence for project tracking.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We liked their attitude, responsiveness, and quality. They’re professionals and we were really able to rely on them 100%. In the financial services space, reliability is critical, and that’s why we chose eTeam. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything they need to improve at the moment. We were pretty satisfied with eTeam.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Clients can fully rely on eTeam to produce the best results.