LITSLINK

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder and CEO of Mainframe Real Estate in Florida.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Our company hired LITSLINK for the development of two custom application for real estate. One was for a back-end system and the other was for website application for consumers.

SOLUTION

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

I initially used LITSLINK for a design project only, but then started working with them for the development of our website application. I was so impressed that we then hired them for the back-end application as well.

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

They did a lot for our projects, including design, documentation, development, project management and more. Both projects had slightly different approaches, but LITSLINK had a very organized approach to how to manage each project in an organized manner.

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

We have worked with many people from their team including project managers, business analysts, designers, front-end developers, back-end developers, server specialists, and more. The great part about their team is that they have people that specialize in everything, even if you only need someone for a short period of time, like with our server set up, for example.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Both projects are currently in development, but we are very happy with the progress so far. The results of the work are exactly what we are looking for because their planning and communication are so good.

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

Constant communication is a big part of their work style, and we keep in touch through Slack and regular video meetings on Google Meet.

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

Some other companies don't really listen, or ultimately want to follow their idea or path. LITSLINK has always made our vision and goals a priority. Their team works together so well.

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

Compared to other companies and developers, I think LITSLINK is top notch.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the COO of an application software company primarily focusing on developing automation and machine learning inside a new generation of mobile email clients. Right now, our application is used by some of the top law firms in the U.S. We are providing custom integrations with various services and applications that law firms use for various needs like time tracking, accounting, and document management. The company has a background in software development and IA [intelligence automation] machine learning, and we have been on the market with our product for about 3 years. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with LITSLINK?

We have a small team that cannot do everything that our business requires at times. We were testing opportunities in the desktop application market, and we needed to jump-start our development for the Android application. We’d already gone through a vast development cycle for our iOS product and accumulated a lot of expertise and specifications. We asked LITSLINK to help us with the desktop project as well as the Android application simultaneously. They had the expertise and people to do both projects in 6 months. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We provided them with specifications and inside knowledge from what we’d developed for the iOS application. They had an entire team for providing self-sustained project development and project management, which included their Scrum master, project manager, CTO, and engineering manager, who helped us make architectural decisions. They participated in various discussions on the technical level. They provided a complete development team from UI to core algorithms, whether we needed server side or specific UI/UX resources for Android or iOS. They always had somebody on their team who could fill a role part-time or full-time, depending on the project needs.

The Android application was programmed in Java, and we used Electron for the desktop version. Electron is a system that allows programming of third-party applications for Mac and Windows.

Electron was a completely new system for us to learn. We knew that a lot of people were developing desktop applications with it, including Slack and JIRA. We were not experts on the platform, so LITSLINK was able to take our requirements and put together a complete application. That was one of the biggest challenges. They had to produce a working demo application for both Android and desktop. For example, the email functionality for Android included a replication of all the existing value propositions in our iOS client—sorting emails by priority, developing behavioral analysis and algorithms, and creating a brand-new UX experience that did not exist in other products at that time in the mobile email space.

They created sorting mechanisms for primary and other emails. They created artificial or machine learning-type implementations on the user’s device and not the cloud. They were involved in a lot of various components of the product, which required them to learn new things and work with our engineers to transfer whatever knowledge we already had at that time to speed up the process.

How did you come to work with LITSLINK?

We’ve known their CEO for quite some time. We were introduced by our advisor and investor. We decided to work with them long-term after they completed a couple of test projects for us on iOS features and improvements. They were compatible in price and had a strong background in mobile application development. 

How much have you invested with LITSLINK?

We spent between $200,000 and $1M.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2016, and the project was completed in January 2017. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or impact of the engagement?

Up to 3 teams were working on our project at the same time. Those teams perform differently. The statistics on average would be satisfactory, with some teams performing on a level of excellence that superseded others. With other teams, we had to do more hand-holding to help them deliver better results. One measurement that we relied on was deliverability. They did deliver 2 products to us in a short timeframe. We had some delays, and we had to cut some things that we had planned. In terms of our spending and output, the project was very satisfactory.

Since they were an external developer, they brought us closer to the reality of improving our organizational skills internally. We worked closely with them in developing the right understanding and team structure as far as the time frames and specifications for deliverables. That set up the groundwork for us to move towards Agile project development inside our organization.

Some of the people on their team were specific in the way that they thought about developing quality, UI/UX experience, etc. They would always focus our initial efforts in designing and planning the product. We were able to deliver high quality in terms of the look and feel of the product. They were driven to make that part of the development process go as smoothly as possible.

In terms of product performance, at the core level, it’s good, but we did have to pay more attention to certain things and divert more resources from our end to make sure that the product that we were delivering was up to our standards. Through the whole experience, we were asking a lot from LITSLINK. We had 3 years of expertise working on the product that we were asking them to develop in 6 months.

Overall, my co-founders are very happy with the results. Our users continue to love the application. Of course, users are never satisfied, so they always want something different and additional changes. The main goal was achieved by LITSLINK in delivering the MVP to our users, so they actually had something instead of nothing.

How did LITSLINK perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re self-reliant and self-motivated. They didn’t need a lot of hand-holding in project management. They knew what to do and when it was supposed to be done. When they finished something, they would eagerly ask what else needed to be done. I was happy the developers already had the right knowledge and could adapt to the process that we required.

When we started a new cycle, things were well-planned, and the whole roadmap was written down. In the process, things could change rapidly if we ran into problems or priorities shifted. They adapted easily and were easy to work with.

What did you find most impressive about LITSLINK?

Their research and development and self-sufficiency in those areas are critical. They had to learn a brand-new platform to deliver a brand-new product in 6 months. They have strong mobile expertise on their team, so I would definitely recommend them to anyone who’s looking for mobile developers.

I know they have other development teams that work on machine learning and intelligence on the server side, but we didn’t get to use them as much. In a certain context, their AI developer was involved in fine-tuning our algorithms, and his expertise was extraordinary. He was able to do in 2 months what our team had tried to do for 6 or 8 months. That resource jump-started the whole process for us. After working with him, we knew a lot more about what we needed to have in the next person we hire as a machine learning developer.

Are there any areas LITSLINK could improve?

I’d like to see a more streamlined process. One thing that is always lacking is the ability to communicate on all fronts. We had a 12-hour time difference, so things couldn’t be solved on a real-time basis, even though someone from their team was available 24/7 for us.

When you’re working with people on the other side of the globe, a bottleneck can happen for any development firm that is working as a third-party service provider with an established organization in North America, Latin America, etc.