STX Next

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Tiqets has been around since 2014. We sell tickets for cultural events around the world, mostly museums. We have a curated website and app for tourists and local people to find the best spots to visit in their regions. Our main office is in Amsterdam, and we have sales offices around the world. They connect to museums, and we connect to suppliers that sell batches of tickets to the museums. Those are being delivered to the consumer via our platform.

My position is tech team manager. The company has been growing rapidly, from five people in 2014 to a development crew of about 50 people in September 2019, when I joined. We’re divided into different focus teams, which are multidisciplinary and with product owners, designers, tech leads, and back- and frontend developers. There is a team division, but there’s one CTO above all teams.

What challenge were you trying to address with STX Next?

Around 90% of our developers are in Amsterdam, but we like to have a flexible shell in order to adapt quickly to market needs. There’s also some work that’s more repetitive and less challenging, or challenging in a different way. We went to STX Next for their flexibility and expertise.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started with one team at STX Next, and we split that up into two teams a couple of months ago. One team does API implementations while the other connects to high-end suppliers for integrations that demand specialized skills. The developers are in Poland, and they receive instructions from a product owner and tech lead in The Netherlands. Our coding language is Python.

What is the team composition?

They changed the team a short period before I joined Tiqets. I’m currently working with two managers, one for business aspects and one for day-to-day operations.

How did you come to work with STX Next?

One of the prerequisites for choosing them was having Python as a coding language. There are better-known software houses in Poland, but they don’t offer Python development. We looked at their website and portfolio, and we reached out to them to determine if we should move forward. We requested information from ten companies and made a shortlist based on that. STX Next wasn’t the cheapest, but they did have a big team of developers.

We’d worked with another Python development company, but they didn’t have as many developers. It would take them months to come up with new résumés if we asked for three more developers, whereas it's easier to scale up with STX Next.

How much have you invested with them?

It took us 3–4 months to get the team set up and working efficiently, with a cost of about €50,000 (approximately $56,900 USD). Right now, we’re paying €40,000–€50,000 per month (approximately $45,500–$56,900 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

STX Next started working with the company before my time. I’m guessing that we’ve been working with them since early-2019 or late-2018. The collaboration is ongoing.

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

STX Next has a decent workforce, and the work that they do is productive and efficient. Whether it could be more efficient is not something I’ve tried to find out. The impact is that we have a good connection to suppliers, and we have a stable platform.

How did STX Next perform from a project management standpoint?

I’m working with the general manager of their office. He is based in Wrocław, where we have our developers situated. He’s very approachable and cooperative in thinking through the different challenges we encounter working together.

From a cultural perspective, Eastern Europe is a bit more hierarchical. It’s basically a matter of telling them what to do and them doing it. It’s pretty productive from that perspective. We always try to stimulate more interactions, as in also getting their opinions as experts on certain matters. It takes some time to get that culture going, but I think we have a smooth operation. It does help that we have a product owner and two developers on our side. The project is controlled from the Amsterdam side and executed by the Polish team.

The developers themselves are working perfectly fine within our agile sprints, but it took some time to get started and to get used to each other. We’re using Slack for communication, Google Docs for documents, and Jira and Confluence for issue tracking, sprint setups, and measurements.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Compared to the other Python developer we’ve worked with, the fact that it’s so easy for STX Next to supply new profiles is pretty impressive. They have a big talent pool, and that makes them very flexible. If I asked them for three new developers by the following week, STX Next would be able to supply them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Among the things we find important are people’s skill levels and their personalities and approach to the work. We like to have a pretty big hand in recruitment, and STX Next wants to put themselves down as having already estimated that a person is a good addition to our team, and we have to believe them. We find it very important that a person has certain personal traits and level of intelligence, and we like to play a part in that. If there’s an improvement point, it’s for them to be more flexible around that. There’s always a bit of a discussion when I tell them that I want to interview their resources, and that it’ll take me 60–90 minutes. It always leads to a return email with them saying that it’s not their normal route for doing things.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Clients shouldn’t underestimate the starting phase. Taking in an external company doesn’t mean that they’ll have a full development team by the following week that will immediately build what the client wants them to. If the client is using the external company purely as an extension of the team that they have in their own office, that will lead to some configuration needs before everything is up and running.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of a social media and image sharing application that’s for electronic music festivals.

What challenge were you trying to address with STX Next?

We had been working with a previous company for about six months, and the work that they were doing was extremely subpar and wasn’t meeting any of our agreements. The designs and code quality were bad. We brought on STX Next to save the project.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We went to them with a fully built application; all of the screens were technically completed, but everything was just poor quality visually and code-wise.

STX Next did a complete redo of the UI from the on-app perspective. They made the app look like the agreed-upon designs that we’d had with the previous company. From a backend perspective, they refactored and cleaned up a lot of the code. They also increased our code security and a lot of the functionality. I believe we closed around 75 tickets over the course of bringing the app to total usability. In that time, we made sure that all of the features we intended to have were actually within the app and working correctly.  

What is the team composition?

I worked with Bartek (Head of React Native), a backend engineer, and a frontend React Native engineer. 

How did you come to work with STX Next?

I actually found them on Clutch. I liked all of the positive reviews and their location in general. I reached out to 5–6 companies on Clutch, received proposals from all of them, and spoke to them on video chat. I had the most appealing conversation with STX Next.

How much have you invested with them?

We’re coming up on $30,000–$40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our work together in March 2020, and we’re technically still working together through a continuing operation agreement. We were able to launch our app in June. 

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

It was a life-changing transition going with STX Next. The development cycle with our previous company was that we’d receive a build every couple of weeks, and it was always really disappointing. We had an ongoing conversation on Basecamp about stuff that needed to be changed. It didn’t feel like there was a really good way to establish good communication to identify specific bugs, so we were wasting tons of time making Excel spreadsheets of what needed to be done. 

Once we brought in STX Next, it was a world of difference. We got a Slack channel set up so that we could communicate daily. I received builds almost every other day. We engaged in a new project management tool; they just came on board with whatever I wanted to use, which was fantastic. I was able to file tickets constantly and monitor all of the activities that were going on. It really increased our confidence in the business to know that work was being done, we were able to effectively file tickets, and we were having daily communication and daily builds. They gave us a lot more visibility into the development cycle.

How did STX Next perform from a project management standpoint?

Everything kept on track. We provided them with a special challenge; when I presented them the project, I didn’t have a complete understanding of how much work it was going to be. Their original estimate was 4–5 weeks, but once they got into the code, it ended up taking three months of work to resolve it. That wasn’t their fault; that was our not representing the project correctly. Even though it was a really difficult project, they maintained a fantastic and super professional attitude throughout. They kept working with us and pushing back the deadline so that we could get the project squared away in a reasonable amount of time for the amount of work that was required. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The level of communication and involvement that we got from their team – especially since it was such a small project compared to what I’m sure they work on – sets them apart. It was really great to be able to work with their head of React Native and talk with their developers daily. For how little I felt the project was, we received excellent treatment, and I never had one complaint about the communication.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have no complaints.

Any advice for potential customers?

Communication is key, as is being involved in the project. They’re super receptive to communication.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of new products and IT at GS1 Polska, a business standards firm. We are most known for barcodes that you can find on items sold in shops.

What challenge were you trying to address with STX Next?

I’m the only IT person in our office. We needed to outsource as much activity as possible, including software development. When we decided we wanted to launch a new product, we needed a company to help us with the development of our small, standard website.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We chose STX Next as a provider for two projects. For the first project, we created the product concept ourselves. We knew exactly what we wanted and prepared a functional specification. We had an extensive workshop with STX Next for a couple of days. We discussed the details of the functionalities that we wanted. After giving a cost estimate, they did the software development. We changed our requirements along the way; when we provided feedback, they acted accordingly. 

The first project went live in January 2020, and they continue to provide support. We proposed the second project to them in December 2019, and then the same team that did the first project started the second one in January. They don’t have their own infrastructure, so they proposed using AWS. The first product is running in the cloud, and the second one will as well. They’re about to finish the second product.

What is the team composition?

There’s a product owner. The full team was present during all of our meetings. It was great having people that were already familiar with our business work on our second project.

How did you come to work with STX Next?

We started getting quotes from different companies in March 2019. Another GS1 company in UAE referred STX Next. We trust our colleagues from different countries. STX Next is based in the same city as us, which we consider an advantage. They’re a Polish company, so there isn’t a language or cultural barrier. We don’t regret hiring them.

How much have you invested with them?

My company has spent $250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in August 2019, and the work is ongoing. We have a plan to collect more requirements, and we’ll probably invest in the system again. Due to COVID-19, our revenue has dropped a bit, so we won’t invest until next year.

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

Their development work is good. Users have said that they like the application, the functionality, and the user interface. Comments have been positive. The number of users on the app isn’t as high as we expected, but this isn’t STX Next’s issue; it’s our problem that we decided to fashion up different functionality. We didn’t recognize the needs of our customers in a very good way.

How did STX Next perform from a project management standpoint?

For both projects, we worked in an agile scrum methodology. We went through our requirements step-by-step. Based on the specifics we prepared, they did a final, more detailed cost estimate. During the first project, the sprints were every two weeks. By the second project, they knew that we change our requirements often, so they decided on one-week sprints. Demos are also weekly.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They listen. They don’t force us to go their way; instead, they follow our way of thinking. During our tender, other companies said they’d want to keep the intellectual rights for the software they’d develop. STX Next said we could just rent their team of developers, and that we would be the owner of whatever they created. They didn’t want to be the owner of it.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’re good at creating software. I think more and more companies want not only software development but also maintenance. They didn’t offer maintenance at first, but when we insisted that we wanted them to be our maintenance company also, they did it for us. I think they should do it for more companies. Also, they proposed only AWS, which is probably the most expensive.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They are a company who listens to you. Based on their approach, I felt like they wanted our business to grow. They’re very supportive.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the COO of the front office technology team of an investment management firm.

What challenge were you trying to address with STX Next?

The demand for Python developers in cities like London, Boston, and New York is fairly intense. We’re very much a Python shop and we invest a lot of time in our recruiting process and hiring standards. It was becoming increasingly more difficult to find good talent in those geographic hubs and so we wanted to expand our talent pool. We were looking for a firm with a track record of expertise.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve undertaken two main approaches with them.  We started with a standalone project where we wished to enhance data discovery via a rich and interactive frontend. It was a relatively packaged up type process. Alongside STX Next, we gathered requirements from end-users, and STX Next provisioned a team that worked alongside our in-house data engineering team to build that out.

A month later, we kicked off a team augmentation approach also. During this project, STX Next provided engineers to augment our existing engineering team, which was aligned to our discretionary hedge fund building out tooling for the portfolio. The STX Next engineers became part of that team’s daily workflow, their prioritization process, and engage directly with their end-users.

What is the team composition?

They brought a team of engineers with a mix of front- and backend. They had a product owner on their side, which was really key to the success. They came to London and we did design sessions in-person. The product owner really built up a very good understanding of our business, as did all of the engineers. They handled the project management for the standalone project.

In the team augmentation set up, they provided the engineers, and we provided the project and product management.

How did you come to work with STX Next?

We knew them from a few years back when we used them to build out a performance attribution tool which is still in use to this day. We were aware that they positioned themselves as Python specialists, and it felt there would be natural synergy in partnering up with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

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

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

We’re happy with the results on the standalone project approach as well as the team augmentation. From the very start of the data catalog piece they built for us, they were thinking about how to track adoption metrics for this tool when it gets released into the world. We have a set of metrics for that particular tool that we can see the uptake in our user base. I can only characterize it as a success.

We started with one standalone project, one small team augmentation, and we have since added some of their resources in the DevOps space with ongoing maintenance. The fact that we’re adding more building blocks into this STX Next ecosystem tells you about our conviction to work with them.

How did STX Next perform from a project management standpoint?

They do product management in addition to project management. They have a well-honed, agile delivery process. The other element that really complements that is they are incredibly strong in design. 

They have a very capable design team of in-house designers. That’s a great leverage effect for any firm that doesn’t have that in-house expertise, to be able to draw upon that and get that rich design layer built into your products. It creates a very nice UX on an end-to-end basis. They really want to get to know your company. They’re very disciplined.

We wanted to spend that first year learning how to best interact with them. Now we’re in a place where we can plan for potentially more work.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I spent a lot of time speaking with other firms in the analysis phase of this initiative. STX Next had built a really nice culture, one that we felt would be compatible with ours. They’re very inquisitive engineers, plugged in designers, and want to know your business in a genuine way.

Are there any areas they could improve?

When we first started working with them, I don’t think the finance industry was their biggest vertical. There has been a learning curve of domain knowledge. The nature of their firm is they will provide their services pretty much across industries.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Do a proof of concept. Pick a project and make it something not too scary and not too close to your core intellectual property. Embrace the STX Next way of doing things as a starting point. The process can be adapted to suit your team’s working style but get a sense of how they would approach it so that you can map the differences and similarities. They will come to your office to carry out rich design and requirement gathering sessions with your end-users. It is critical that you spend that initial few weeks answering all the questions that they ask and prompting them to ask you 10 more questions. The more time you spend with them upfront, really getting them to understand your business domain knowledge, the better the work they will deliver.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My organization is a tech startup that uses AI to automate technology scouting for Fortune 500 companies, venture capitalists, and foundations.

What challenge were you trying to address with STX Next?

We’re a startup and we were building up the team. We need to figure out all the moving pieces and find an expert in machine learning specifically for text and classification to help build our product.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They executed our design of a machine learning classification system. They helped us develop the data pipelines to import the data to be classified and all the deployment to production. The project included everything from the data pipeline to the deployment of machine learning algorithms and models.  

What is the team composition?

We had a machine learning engineer, a data engineer, and a full stack developer.

How did you come to work with STX Next?

One of my employees did research and compared the various options out there. STX Next wasn’t the cheapest option out there, but they offered a good, reliable value.

We reached out to STX Next about creating another product. They’re experts in Python and learned they had machine learning in-house, which is difficult to find. We liked that they’ve worked together before because it pays dividends to have a team with established communication patterns. It’s just more efficient.

How much have you invested with them?

It would have been between $15,000–$20,000 per month, so I’d guess around $150,000–$200,000 in total.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted from September 2019 – June 2020.

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

With their help, we were able to scale our innovation data from about 5,000 innovation records to 200,000 innovation records.

On the machine learning side, the project enabled us to onboard a team of five people for data sanitation, so no our data can be scrubbed and cleaned. This positions us for scalability.

How did STX Next perform from a project management standpoint?

It was excellent. They delivered what they said they were going to deliver and their estimates for how long it would take were accurate. Our own product manager sets the priorities and timelines on our side. Their side found the staff to fill our needs. We used Jira to keep track of everything.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We felt fortunate to work with the people that were on our team. They’re good people.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’re an Austin-based company, and the rigidity to sticking to Polish hours was a challenge. It wasn’t an independent piece of work, so we needed to collaborate. It would have helped if we had the flexibility and their hours overlapped with our hours in the US.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you have leadership in-house to guide the project. An in-house team leader can help manage the project and make sure everything is moving along.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a cybersecurity startup.

What challenge were you trying to address with STX Next?

We wanted to outsource development tasks related to a custom software project. We needed a team with experience in Python.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We provided the specifications and requirements for the software and then STX developed two modules using Python. Their team wrote code as well as managed front- and backend development for their designated tasks.

What is the team composition?

STX dedicated a project manager, developers, and other tech teammates to this project.

How did you come to work with STX Next?

We considered a couple of different companies. We liked STX’s experience with Python and their processes, which were similar to ours.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from November 2019 – March 2020.

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

Before they started to write code, STX brought in a team to understood the specifications because this project was crucial. It had to be finished on time and coded well. If it wasn't, we would've had to return the funding or come up with additional funding internally. We were pleased with the overall quality of their work.

How did STX Next perform from a project management standpoint?

The communication was open and honest. We used e-mail, a ticketing system, source code systems, Microsoft Teams, and Google platforms. We also had a few scheduled meetings as well as on-demand calls when necessary.

Their team met their deadlines. When we couldn’t meet our deadlines, they were flexible.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We liked their DevOps culture, which was similar to ours and made for a smoother partnership. Their team was knowledgeable, especially in Python. They understood our specifications without much explanation, which was better than our experiences with other vendors. During the next round of development, we will definitely work with them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They aren’t the cheapest. However, you get what you pay for with development.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I can only recommend them regarding working with Python.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of digital products for a research firm.

What challenge were you trying to address with STX Next?

We wanted to expand our development resources with a more local connection. We were looking to add resources in our predominant technology stack of Python and React.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The team of engineers from STX Next use a ticketing system for development tasks. Initially, they were collaborating with our internal team, but as time went on, they began working more independently. They mainly work in Python and React. We also have access to UX designers and frontend developers.

What is the team composition?

The service manager is my main point of contact. They assign engineers and designers to work with us on different projects; they have a large crew in four different locations. Team size varies by project.

How did you come to work with STX Next?

We chose them because they had the best talent pool for Python and used Agile methodology. They also had the best pricing.

How much have you invested with them?

My company has spent $700,000–$800,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in November 2018, and it’s ongoing.

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

They have done a lot of work in React that has improved the overall look of the product as well as the quality. They help us create and maintain software that is more flexible to adjustments. We have learned a lot from watching their day-to-day processes: standups, bi-weekly sprint reviews, etc. They have made the software development process more transparent and predictable.

How did STX Next perform from a project management standpoint?

They have a good grip on what they’re doing. They work in Agile methodology. The service manager and I meet every week or two to discuss the progression, what’s going well or needs improvement, and what’s coming up. We also rotate people on and off the project as needed. There is daily interaction between our project manager and their Scrum master and product owner. They also communicate via Slack or phone with our internal team regarding technical challenges or anything that needs to be discussed.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are a one-stop-shop. A key benefit is their ability to quickly scale up or down, allowing us to get new people on board for projects. It’s very efficient.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They had to develop their React resources along the way, which slowed some things down. They also took a while to understand what drives our company, making it difficult for them to work independently on specific features.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Hire them for the skills they have in-house. Their core strengths are Python and working in greenfield situations, such as startups or new projects. They have a multi-disciplinary team.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the lead developer for a seafood marketplace.

What challenge were you trying to address with STX Next?

We needed help with development.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They work on the main development of the marketplace with our in-house team. They’re developing a feature to show the customers which products are available and which aren’t, as well as online payment integration. We’re using only Python for the backend. From time to time, they do a little bit of JavaScript.

What is the team composition?

We worked with one junior backend developer and one senior backend developer. There’s one QA engineer who is developing our automation testing and related features. The manager is my main point of contact.

How did you come to work with STX Next?

Our former CTO chose them, so I can’t say.

What is the status of this engagement?

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

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

Our aim at the beginning was to have more Python developers on the team, and they fit perfectly. We’re working as one big team. We’re able to develop the features that we want and the quality of work has been solid. They’re really experienced and they’ve made a great impact.

How did STX Next perform from a project management standpoint?

We work in a scrum process and we haven’t had any troubles. They take part in our daily meeting. They’re working from Poland but it’s like they’re working on location with us. We consider them team members.

The relationship is very transparent and we always know what they’re doing. They’re good at communication and hitting deadlines. We use Jira and an online whiteboard.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re really friendly and easy to work with. I’m really impressed with their competence.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we’re happy with them. They’re always trying to find a good solution.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure the people you’re working with from STX Next are personable and friendly. For us, it was very important to us that the person fits with the team.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CEO and founder of a communication platform for business schools. 

What challenge were you trying to address with STX Next?

We engaged STX Next to develop our platform.

What was the scope of their involvement?

STX Next built the backend in Python and the administrative panel using Django. The panel handles our users and databases without requiring our team to code anything. The frontend uses predominantly React and Vue.js, and we’re using CraftQL to create the interface between the front- and backend. Our team spent nine months designing the product before we started this project.

The platform provides a network for users to browse, filter, and search for other users using their profile information. It also features a new group messaging system which allows the user to add many people at once based on their profile info.

What is the team composition?

At the height of development, we had about six people working on the team: two frontend developers, three backend developers, and one full stack developer.

How did you come to work with STX Next?

I reached out to about 23 different partners across the world, and STX Next was one of the ones that made it to the very final round. I found them on Clutch after my COO suggested Poland as a potential area for partnership. STX Next demonstrated technical ingenuity while charging competitive prices, resulting in a nice balance between quality of work and cost.

I'd already gone through and created a backlog of features and functionalities that I wanted. I just needed to know how far my set budget could go through that backlog. A salesperson wouldn't have that level of insight. STX Next had a technical person on the very first call, which was incredibly helpful and set them apart from other partners. That person then took over my team when I chose STX Next for this project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April 2018, and the project is ongoing.

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

The platform has launched internationally. We have over 3,300 MBA students and 46 business schools on the platform at the moment. Our site hasn’t once crashed as our user base expands and people experiment with our features—a testament to the quality of STX Next’s work. We’ve received praise from users and our team on the platform. We’re thrilled with STX Next.

How did STX Next perform from a project management standpoint?

STX Next is highly flexible when it comes to a startup’s needs. We can scale the team as needed and only have to give them a week’s notice. We never have a team member sitting around doing nothing. STX Next also adapts their protocols to meet our preferences and challenges. I can’t recommend them more highly from that perspective.

We use Jira and other Atlassian products to manage our tasks. We used to use Slack for our communication, but we’ve since migrated over to our own platform.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Because STX Next has hundreds of resources available, they can scale our team easily. If I went with a smaller company, they’d have to outsource the work whenever we encountered specific challenges. At STX Next, the team can reach out to their network, share and receive knowledge, and bring back a tested solution to our problem.

They are also focused on creating a long-term partnership. STX Next cares about the software they’re building, and it shows in the final quality and user experience.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Originally, STX Next wasn’t as flexible in giving up its set methodologies to accommodate our needs. However, when we asked to use our money to replace a structured project management process with an additional coder, STX Next agreed. I’m glad they had the flexibility, but it wasn’t an option they considered before our project. It was a learning process for us both.

Any advice for potential customers?

Know your products thoroughly so that you know precisely what you want it to do and what you want to be built. It will save so much money. STX Next will help you prioritize your requests and challenge assumptions you’ve made, but it’s best to be prepared in advance.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the business development manager for an organization that supports the empowerment of women.

What challenge were you trying to address with STX Next?

We needed a company to help us reach far more people. We came up with the idea to develop a mobile app so we could send our message to people. We wanted to share our teachings with people and influence them to challenge themselves to be their best, positive self.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed our iOS and Android mobile app. The app offers meditation and audio lessons. We have several topics such as relationships, how to set boundaries, and how to be more positive. People can listen to our teachings through audio files. Whenever you want to learn something new, the app is always there with new content.

STX Next followed our branding guidelines in their development of 90% of the designs. We went back and forth and changed a few things until our visions aligned. STX Next is working on the backend, operations, and design.

We postponed the release of the app because the content isn’t to the standard that I want yet.

What is the team composition? 

I worked with the project manager, the designers, and the developers. They are all handpicked. I love each one of them.

How did you come to work with STX Next?

One of my team members searched for the best app companies. We interviewed 10 companies and asked them to give us a sample of their work. It was extremely important for us to work with a company that was on the same level, and that’s what we found with STX Next.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April 2019, and the project is scheduled to be complete in July 2019.

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

We have the beta version of the app, and it’s outstanding. It’s performing well. The internal team loves it.

How did STX Next perform from a project management standpoint?

The project manager is the best. She’s exceedingly organized. There were no frustrations for me. We always had good, open communication with her and the team. We use Slack and InVision to communicate. They deliver on time. They’re detailed and on point. At the end of every sprint, they tell me what they’ve done and what they have planned. They show me the results in our weekly performance meetings. I’m happy with them. They go the extra mile to help me. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re great. Once we’re done with this app, we will give them some new projects. Since we’re connected with the people here in the UAE, we’ll propose their services to some of our partners. 

I love that they are so in love with the app and what we do. They want to be part of this social change and empowering women.

Are there any areas they could improve?

If they had an Arabic translator, it would give them a good jump.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a clear vision of the project. Know your goal and vision of the app. STX Next has the tools and the mind to do it.