Powercode

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Smart Innovative Solutions. Our product is a mobile app platform where students can sell their notes and help each other with assignments.

What challenge were you trying to address with PowerCode?

We needed a development firm to build our product for iOS and Android.

What was the scope of their involvement?

PowerCode developed our app for both iOS and Android. A notable feature is the messaging system where users can share files and communicate with each other. There’s also an integrated payment solution and a rating system for notes that are bought and sold. Users are encouraged to rate each other after each completed transaction. The UX combines elements seen in large platforms like eBay, Facebook, and Uber.

They also developed a landing page that describes the functions of the app and directs visitors to the relevant digital distribution platforms. Lastly, PowerCode created an administration panel that enables me to see all the in-app activity. The platform went live in May 2018 and they’ve since built a function that allows users to preview notes before opening them.

What is the team composition?

I initially spoke with their sales manager, but a project manager took the lead in our day-to-day interactions once development began.

How did you come to work with PowerCode?

I found them on LinkedIn and reached out to their sales manager. We had a productive conversation. They sounded reasonable and came up with good solutions regarding the platform’s payment functionality. Hiring them was an easy decision.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $80,000 in total.

What is the status of this engagement?

The majority of PowerCode’s work took place from September 2017–July 2018. They provide maintenance and support as needed.

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

Since its recent launch, the app has attracted around 100 active users. The app functions smoothly on both platforms and people are happy with the fast user interface. PowerCode created features that work well together and the app is relatively bug-free.

How did PowerCode perform from a project management standpoint?

We spoke on a daily basis via Skype. Their project manager is a talented, professional, and experienced person who can reliably overcome development challenges.

What did you find most impressive about them?

From what I’ve heard from other partners and colleagues, PowerCode has competitive pricing. Their code quality is exceptional as well. I rarely found bugs in the deliverables they submitted for preview. Their work required little revision from us and was nearly ready for release upon completion.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. I’m happy PowerCode and plan on having them add more functionalities to the app.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Clients should describe exactly what they want from their product. The more detailed they are in their expectations, the smoother the process will go.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a software as a service (SaaS) business. We serve e-commerce companies worldwide with an easy plug-and-play solution.

For what projects/services did your company hire PowerCode?

We created our own designs, but we needed PowerCode for all front- and backend development of the app.

What were your goals for this project?

We needed a stable platform that could handle a lot of customers and payments. The solution needed to work on any website with easy to integrate plugins. Our project also involved a large amount of frontend development.

How did you select this vendor?

They were recommended by another company. During our initial Skype calls, I was impressed by their preparation and detailed questions.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

We delivered Powercode all of our designs. Using this as a foundation, their team built the entire architecture, both the front- and backend. They divided the project into seven clear milestones and deadlines. Their project manager conducted weekly calls to discuss progress and answer any questions.

What was the team composition?

We worked with their project manager, who was a good communicator with a good understanding of English. We also worked with multiple front- and backend developers, depending on our needs.

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

They met all milestone deadlines and delivered an impressive final product. We're now launching the product, and Powercode still provides great post-finalization support

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We scheduled weekly calls via Skype to discuss our progress and the details of the project. If there were any misunderstandings, they contacted us with detailed and clear questions.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They were great in their preparation for the project. They planned their timeline out extremely well, which made it possible to tackle all our challenges within our agreed deadlines. I'm extremely happy with their project management and the quality of their work.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the CEO of a company that focuses on manufacturing software.

For what projects/services did your company hire PowerCode?

To augment our staff and assist with several urgent projects.

What were your goals for this project?

We were looking to fix a project that had been severely delayed, and subsequently work through a series of other projects.

How did you select this vendor?

We were considering several options. The most significant criteria for us were Clutch reviews and fast reaction times.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

Their scope included a variety of frontend and backend development.

What was the team composition?

We worked with one frontend developer, one backend developer, a partial CTO, and a product manager.

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

They left the project, which put us in a very difficult situation. The project is still not finalized.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We received daily reporting from our product manager. However, communication broke down across several areas at the end. The code they delivered did not pass QA tests, while they neglected to inform us on serious issues until very recently. They terminated the engagement after problems began to arise.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Initially, they quickly got up to speed for the project and were willing to deploy whatever resources were necessary.

Are there any areas where they can improve?

They failed to raise concerns and problems in real time and often delayed on creating tickets/updating Jira to reflect current project status. The team needs to help clients think through their product specs and more extensively test their code prior to delivery. They should also fully commit to the projects they agree to take on.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of Levr Tech. We offer software development services to startups in Singapore and across Southeast Asia.

What challenge were you trying to address with PowerCode?

We partnered with PowerCode because it’s difficult to find freelance software engineers in our area.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We work together on a number of projects, creating MVPs, mobile apps, and assisting with migration startups. They use AngularJS and React.js for frontend development, and Node.js for backend infrastructure. They’ve also worked on databases and API development.

What is the team composition?

When we first started, I was assigned a project manager who coordinated with their developers. Recently, however, they’ve allowed me to select and manage my resources personally. This helps streamline the process.

How did you come to work with PowerCode?

I began working with them while serving as CTO with a previous company. I worked with other contractors, but found that PowerCode delivered quality products and services while meeting deadlines, so I decided to work with them when launching my current company.

How much have you invested with them?

I’ve invested around $55,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

Including my previous company, I’ve worked with PowerCode since October 2016 and our relationship is ongoing.

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

With their help, I was able to take on more projects and deliver results in a timely fashion. My clients often expect a turnaround of a few months – a few weeks, in some cases – and PowerCode helps me meet these tight deadlines.

How did PowerCode perform from a project management standpoint?

I’m happy with our level of communication. I use Slack internally and PowerCode has accommodated me, though we also talk through Skype. We organize projects with JIRA, Trello, and InVision.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They offer an excellent balance of cost, efficiency and quality. They produce timely deliverables to the standards of a larger company, but at relatively low costs.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their English-language proficiency could be improved. It would also help if they hired more developers.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an entrepreneur providing a service for project management and idea creation.

What challenge were you trying to address with PowerCode?

We wanted to transform our startup project into an app platform that encourages users to share information. This required both design and development of mobile/web apps.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They first provided graphical blueprints of everything to lay out a plan and get ideas flowing. Most of the development they are doing is in JavaScript. The independent nature of the platform doesn’t require other system integrations as of now. However, it features user submission so the NoSQL database they built stores that information and displays it via an API.

What is the team dynamic?

I correspond with one project manager at this time. There are 1­–2 developers on the team.

How did you come to work with PowerCode?

We found them on Upwork and conducted several interviews. They provided great quotes and we found their previous work impressive.

How much have you invested with them?

I’ll say $10,000­–$50,000

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2017, and the engagement is ongoing.

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

We haven’t launched yet and don’t have any metrics or user feedback. However, the owners of the site and I are very happy with the functionality.

How did PowerCode perform from a project management standpoint?

Communication-wise, their 24/7, it’s amazing really. We primarily used Skype and Jira for communication and project tracking, respectively.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Adaptation comes to mind. They’re able to implement new ideas rapidly and the baseline product is great.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There are features that we'd like to include that weren't thought of immediately. Aesthetically, the project could be improved. This could be prevented in the future by slowing down and personalizing more projects. Instead of trying to match other ideas, invest time in creating novel ones.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

OnBoardMe is a startup in its very early phases with an overall goal of allowing users to travel with more of an intent-driven approach, putting a twist on the regular itineraries. Through market research, we came up with the concept of focusing on users’ travel intents, or moods. By working through a series of moods, such as “feeling heart” or “forget my ex”—some more gimmicky than the others—we were able to use ‘likes’ algorithms, and start making associations in order to find out the true meaning behind all of these moods, making people resonate with them. We came up with the concept of travel boards for users, which would serve as snapshots of the destinations, with inspiration from likes on Instagram, video content, and live events they could interact with during trips.

What challenge were you trying to address with PowerCode?

I scoped the concept out with an early founding team, and brought in PowerCode early on to create a scope of the overall project.

What was the scope of their involvement?

PowerCode has worked on our responsive web app. It runs on JavaScript and basic HTML on the frontend, and PHP on the backend. We are building native versions as well.

We looked at some of the more common code bases such as Python, but settled on PHP because it’s more common in London.

We also have third-party APIs in place. Once a user is taken through a questionnaire telling us about their trip (destination, travel mood, partners, and more detailed preferences), we will put the information into our database and make the necessary calls to our APIs, coming back with a first cut of the travel board, which is then sent to me or someone else on the team. We’ve built a CMS [content management system] on the backend, and once we receive a request, we will interact with the customer further, finding out more about the trip, or we will start building more of that board.

Within the CMS, there are additional search functionalities which allow us to look through keywords and particular APIs, giving us a dump of all results which match a particular category. From there, we will manually personalize what the user is given and send in a second draft.

We have integration with Google Maps and other services, Instagram, Facebook login/signup APIs, Facebook graph for live events, and Foursquare for additional events location services. We use Elasticsearch for querying the databases.

The design of the site was outsourced to another provider.

What is the team dynamic?

Andrey Zakharov was our project manager. He oversaw tasks around testing and management planning. We worked with three developers initially and brought the scale down as needed.

How did you come to work with PowerCode?

It was an active search during which I reviewed different profiles. We spoke to more than 20 vendors through Upwork, and PowerCode seemed to be right for the role. A key thing which I realized was that many of these companies want to look at the cost first, and the product second. While PowerCode’s team understood it was a client-provider relationship, they also felt they wanted to innovate on the product and add their own touch, rather than execute by-the-book.

Once we provided our requirements, we spent a couple of days discussing their suggestions and ideas. I liked their approach to future-proofing the concept, in terms of the technologies used. PowerCode was a natural pick, rather than other vendors.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost of their work has been around £25,000. [$32,000]

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with PowerCode in October 2016, and finished the MVP version at the beginning of February 2017. After the launch, we held off on iterations for a time, during which I went through business validations. I had set out a clear objective of what we needed to build, but after coming to market and realizing that we weren’t churning any valuable data from users or building a customer base, we decided to iterate and improve the product. The second phase agreement was aimed at reviewing our roadmap, and continuing to build new features.

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

We didn’t collect analytics from the start, but have implemented Mixpanel, Google Analytics, and Intercom, which allows us to communicate with the customers visiting our page. I don’t have a before-and-after view, but we’ve received quite a bit of feedback around the site’s functionality.

How did PowerCode perform from a project management standpoint?

We wanted to work in an Agile environment, and their team was comfortable with this. We worked in 2-week sprints initially, but we realized that we didn’t have much of a heartbeat, so we moved the schedule down to 1-week sprints. There were many challenging times, working with APIs like Elasticsearch, which is a huge black hole. This did lead to delays and the need for additional sprints, but everything was discussed clearly upfront. We didn’t have any major surprises, which is why we’re still working with PowerCode.

We used the Google suite for communication, including Hangouts for live chat. We handled ticketing through Atlassian, JIRA, and made some light use of Trello as well. In order to centralize designs, we used Zeplin. There was a huge emphasis on commenting on Zeplin tickets, in terms of missing assets or misunderstandings around the site behavior.

What did you find most impressive about them?

When I kept tight control over the day-to-day operations, and micromanaged their team, I saw good performance. When I put more trust in them, and allowed PowerCode to come back with solutions to my requirements, that’s when I was most impressed.

I gave a simple requirement for the Facebook events-returning functionality; at the end of the sprint, PowerCode managed to accomplish my task, but also built additional functionalities, which made it more powerful than ever. It didn’t only return events, but looked at ones which were taking place based on city, time, and other variables, which I didn’t even know were available through Facebook Graph.

They came up with innovations, instead of just building something in order to get my money and move on to the next project. PowerCode considered what the best thing to do was.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Interaction between the developers and the client would be an improvement. I’m a business analyst by trade, and communicate with all team members, including coders. In PowerCode’s case, there could be less communication being liaised through the project manager. I find this to be an older model.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of KwickDoctor, an online app for people who can’t easily reach a doctor, especially in the Middle East.

What challenge were you trying to address with PowerCode?

I came up with the idea, but I needed someone to formalize my business requirements and build the app and website.

What was the scope of their involvement?

PowerCode initially proposed native iOS and Android apps, but I wanted an app and a web presence. We decided to make a hybrid app, and instead of using Node, we used Meteor since PowerCode is skilled in it. They’re managing the API and integrating online video conferencing into the app.

What is the team composition?

There’s a project manager, two designers (one for web, one for the app), a UX lead, two business analysts, and three developers (one for web, two for the app).

How did you come to work with PowerCode?

I looked into a lot of companies, but a colleague recommended PowerCode. I interviewed the entire team, I liked what they offered and they fit my criteria, so I hired them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $25,000, and we’ll probably spend between $40,000–$50,000 by the end.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in June 2017, and it’s still ongoing.

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

Nothing has officially launched yet, but after every sprint, PowerCode gives me a demo so I know exactly where we’re at. I created a delivery plan, and they’ve achieved every goal on time so far.

How did PowerCode perform from a project management standpoint?

Their team maintains clear and open communication and follows an efficient agile methodology. We video chat frequently and use email to stay in contact. The project manager is amazing, and we talked nearly every day.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their BAs and project managers are phenomenal. They understand the project requirements completely, and they even provide in-depth feedback, which is quite impressive. They have superb business and project management skills.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not all team members can speak English well. Their understanding is good, but their communication skills could improve.

This review was updated on March 13, 2018 by the client. New content is below.

UPDATED REVIEW

What was the scope of their involvement?

They created a hybrid app and helped with APIs.

What is the team composition?

There was a project manager with two designers who handled the development. I wasn’t happy with the designers and ended up designing everything myself. They were just a development team and their designs were very basic, which I didn’t approve of.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $35,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We stopped working together in January 2018.

Describe the impact this engagement has had on your business.

The final product they delivered was developed poorly and incomplete. I wasted around $35,000 with them and received nothing. The product very basic for how much it cost. The delayed everything and failed to meet deadlines. I had to take the project away from them and hire somebody else. I ended up asking them for the codebase.

How was project management handled?

They were lacking in both their skills and ability to communicate. Only the company’s owner, the project manager, and the business analyst could speak English. I was hopeful that things would get better and that they’d respond to me on time, but they stopped communicating completely. It would take them 24 hours to respond to one Skype or Jira message. It was either a communication, competency, or cultural issue. I wasn’t happy with that team.

I want to ask the company’s owner if he really thinks a two-page project is worth $35,000 because I feel I was taken advantage of. I’m scared because they still have my codebase and passwords.

They have only basic knowledge of workflow principles. I asked the team and company owner to provide me with a complete product backlog (which I paid them for), but they only gave me a one-page list with bullet points. They have no idea what product backlog items or stories are. The project manager was incapable of doing their job. I sent them everything via emails and Skype and even asked them to do the same. Misunderstanding things a couple of times is understandable, but the language barrier caused this to happen constantly.

What advice do you have for clients with similar needs to yours?

I asked them to prepare a contract for me, but they didn’t because they were too busy to give us something in writing. The amount we agreed on for the minimum viable product (MVP) was $25,000, but they changed the price. I agreed to pay them more to deliver the MVP, which ended up being $35,000. The total scope was $50,000, but they took over half of that and didn’t deliver anything that was complete or meet any of the deliverables.

This review was updated on October 30th, 2019, by the client. The original star ratings were: Overall – 0.5, Quality – 0.5, Scheduling 0.5, Cost – 0.5, NPS – 0.5. New content is below.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of KwickDoctor, a telemedicine mobile app.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with the vendor?

The growing and aging population around the globe is becoming more demanding and frustrated with their existing medical norms. They want instant medical reassurance, medical attention, and second opinions while they are on the go. This provides a very big market on a global scale that can be tapped into anywhere in the world. 

KwickDoctor is a new and improved portable mobile and web application that will provide its users with a full range of medical services. Our target user is an individual with mobile or web access that requires medical attention or associate services either locally or abroad from any geo-location. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

• Live video chat with local and foreign doctors
• Scheduling appointments with specialized doctors such as surgeons or pediatricians
• Scheduling appointments for diagnostic procedures such as X-rays, lab tests or MRI’s
• Ordering medicine for delivery or pick-up at your local pharmacy
• Easy, secure and convenient payment methods that cater to most clients
• Fully compliant with HIPAA standards to protect patient’s personal data
• Convenient storage of patient medical history that can be accessed by other doctors for future consultations

What is the team composition?

A business analyst/project manager and three full-stack developers.

How did you come to work with them?

Through a friend’s recommendation.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The cost is reasonable, but the scheduling and quality are average.

How did the team perform from a project management standpoint?

Very average performance of the team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their keenness and effort towards doing things right are impressive. Hence, I am giving them one more opportunity to fix things this time.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Communication and time estimations could improve.

Any advice for potential customers?

Possibly in the future.