Binary Studio

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of a virtual video communication platform. Our product has been on the market for two years.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Binary Studio?

We needed a software development firm that could provide top-quality development services, specifically engineers, project managers, and engineering support specialists.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Binary Studio has built our platform from scratch. We initially provided wireframes and full-fidelity mock-ups to build off of them. From there, it’s been a collaborative effort. They provide feedback and suggest work based on what we want to develop.

They’ve used C++ and .NET on the backend and Flutter on the frontend. Binary Studio has provided subject matter experts to help us move our development speed along. They’ve built for iOS and Android simultaneously on the frontend and discovered more efficient ways to make our product work.

As a video technology company, we must have a good video service provider and a matching engine to make real-time video calls. They’ve assisted us with our matching engine for our video technology and the frontend appearance and aesthetic of our application.

What is the team composition?

At the highest point of our engagement, we had 13–14 engineers from Binary Studio. We’ve had multiple engineering talents and project managers. However, our main hires have been junior and senior front- and backend developers to work on different parts of the application.

How did you come to work with Binary Studio?

A good friend of our business partners referred Binary Studio. We engaged with them and were pleased with the results we got.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent close to $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in June 2020, and our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve attained over 9,000 downloads of our application during our soft launch phase and seen success testing our platform in smaller markets. We’re really pleased with the results; we’re getting ready to push our product to the marketplace on a bigger scale. Moreover, we’ve seen a 14% increase in our platform’s subscribers over the past 60 days. All in all, Binary Studio's work has led to conversions for our business.

How did Binary Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

Although we have different time zones, we’ve never had a delay; they’ve hit every deadline on our roadmaps. The team is honest, communicative, and accommodating; they stay up late if we need them to. They’re also flexible if we have questions.

We typically communicate using Slack and email. We also use Atlassian and Jira to track our sprints.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their strength is their ability to deliver on time and their communication skills, which are critical for any business. Their ability to do what is asked while respectfully voicing their opinion is also impressive. They bring their experience to the table instead of just executing the vision. They feel like a true partner.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Honestly, there isn’t much we can change. We went into the engagement knowing they were in a different time zone. They’ve been very accommodating and flexible, so we haven’t had any bad experiences.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a clear vision of what you’re looking to do. As a technology partner, they can bring your vision to life. If you don’t have a clear idea of what you want, they can also help you formulate them.

Additionally, be flexible with the time zone constraints if you’re working internationally.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of supply chain and contracts for an IT services and consulting company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Binary Studio?

We needed help with the backend of a home appliance technology system we’re developing.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Binary Studio has been helping us with both the back- and frontend development of the system we’re creating to optimize it and make it more modern. In addition, their team has advised us on the platform’s design and how it should work.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with Artem (CEO), an account executive, a team lead, around nine developers, and a QA specialist.

How did you come to work with Binary Studio?

Our program manager had worked with them on a previous project, and she recommended them to us.

How much money have you invested in this partnership?

So far, we’ve spent around $1 million with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2019, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’ve done an exceptional job — everyone on our team is delighted with their involvement. In addition, we haven’t had any problems with the system they’ve developed for us.

How did Binary Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is perfect in terms of communication and meeting deadlines. In terms of tools, we use Jira, Slack, Zoom, and Telegram.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their customer service is great, and they’re an easy-to-work-with team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything they can improve on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I highly recommend people working with them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I lead (in CTO equivalent roles) multiple projects that use resources from Binary Studio.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We use Binary Studio resources to build apps in many different domains. The platforms consist of web apps, and mobile apps. The projects incorporate original solutions to mapping, routing, logistics, blockchain, and payment related problems.

SOLUTION

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

We found them through a referral in 2018. Since then we have used them on multiple projects.

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

Binary Studio provides project management, web app, and mobile app developers. We use .Net, React, Rect Native, PostgreSQL database, mapping solutions, directions, routing, payment, Twilio, Sendgrid, Stripe, AWS, and Azure. They also do all the continuous integration and continuous delivery.

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

We currently have have about 14 Binary Studio resources. We have had much higher number of resources also.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They have always delivered high quality solutions in a timely manner. The platforms were delivered in a timely manner.

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

We communicate via Jira, Confluence, and Slack. They regularly hold grooming meetings, daily scrum, and use Jira for all project management and release management.

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

They are very open, communicate well, and deliver quality work in a timely manner.

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

None. They have always been very responsive and therefore I have no concerns.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an enterprise specialist at a multinational software and services firm, so I manage large-scale enterprise projects. These projects mainly focus on POS, billing, and scheduling systems, among other systems required to run business operations. Basically, I help manage ERP system projects.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Binary Studio?

We were starting a new project, but we didn’t have enough internal staff to handle it, so we sought Binary Studio’s help with custom software development to kickstart this project.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Originally, Binary Studio was hired to help us kickstart our development project. However, our relationship worked out so well that they’ve continued working for us for the last four years. They mainly help us with React development, for which we provide them with the framework design, and they develop the product according to our directions. In addition to software development, they’ve also helped us with a little bit of project management.

What is the team composition?

We have close to 10 people from Binary Studio working on our project, but I mainly interact with the owner.

How did you come to work with Binary Studio?

I found them on Google.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent well over $1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2018, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Binary Studio has done a great job at integrating into our team. They’re basically doing work for us as if they were part of our company, and they’ve done a great job in that regard.

How did Binary Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

Binary Studio’s resources have been successful at maintaining the development pace we have internally. For project management and communication, we’ve used Jira, Shortcut, Google Chat, Google Meet, and some internal tools.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Binary Studio’s listening skills are impressive. They’ve done a great job at integrating with our internal culture, and they do what they’re asked to do, which is very important.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. They’re very responsive to anything we ask them to improve on.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Head of Software Engineering of a company providing solutions for electric vehicle charging.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We have on-site development teams but we were facing difficulties to hire locally, so we were looking for a near-shore partner to help us extending the local team.

SOLUTION

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

We shortlisted Binary Studio and another provider from a longer list of partners. After a couple of months with both in parallel, we decided to work with Binary Studio only.

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

The Binary Studio resources are fully integrated with our local team, working together with Scrum. We are developing various solutions mostly using Microsoft web technologies.

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

In January 2021 we started with two junior developers and a junior QA from Binary Studio. Along the way we extended with two more senior developers (current total of 5 resources)

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Having the QA resource working with the local dev team allowed to detect issues early and improve the quality of our product. The other full stack developers are bringing a lot of additional value: after more than a year working all together they are part of the team, brining ideas and challenging the local team.

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

We do not really have project management as such as the Scrum Masters and Product Owners are part of the local team. However, the Binary Studio client team was very reactive and supporting as soon as their help was needed.

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

I guess the responsiveness and implication of the support / client team is great: they take any feedback or request seriously and find efficient solutions to improve the situation or solve issues.

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

Some juniors were really juniors and also it is working fine now, we would ideally have preferred developers with a bit more experience.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CTO. At Catalyst GEM we help international students on their pathway to Studying Abroad

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed an extra pair of hands to help expedite the development of our Platform. To further increase traffic, conversions and overall improve the usability

SOLUTION

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

We scoured the internet for possible technology partners. And had a short list of 5. After further talks and walkthroughs of our platform, we unanimously decided that Binary Studio were the technology partner for us. Their standout credentials were the sheer number of happy customers (both previous and present) and the skills/breadth-of-knowledge of their developers

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

Within the first few days, our developer was already committing code to our live Platform. Binary Studio were able to really hit the ground running. Our tech stack is AWS, C# (Lambda) and Angular front end. Binary Studio selected the right developer for us and he was very knowledgeable and was able to be productive right away

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

There was 1 developer from Binary Studio

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our user experience increased dramatically (for both our internal team and external users). We were able to really implement a few cutting edge features that further improved our Platform

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

Myself and Binary Studio's Developer used a mixture of Slack/Teams and Jira to communicate and track tasks. Code was committed and reviewed using GitLab

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

Binary Studio stood out from the other companies we were considering, they were always extremely responsive, they asked the right questions (about the project/work) before starting and during. Their breadth of in-house skills were unmatched at the time. The code quality was very high, edge-cases were carefully considered, and code was tested and reasoned about.

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

None at all

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of an AI-powered financial management platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Binary Studio?

We needed someone to develop new features for our web application.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They provided ASP.NET development for my web application. 

What is the team composition?

For most of the engagement, I’ve worked with one full-time development resource. A senior engineer assisted during the initial strategy period to ensure the development went smoothly as well.

How did you come to work with Binary Studio?

I found them through a Google search looking for Angular and ASP.NET developers. After submitting a contact request on their site, one of their business development personnel reached out to me. 2–3 calls followed where we refined what I was looking for and we reached an agreement on the deliverables.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $20,000–$25,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since November 2021. The project is temporarily on pause but I plan to begin again shortly.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

There aren’t any metrics, as the project is yet to launch, but the feedback so far is very positive about the quality of their work. Their development work has tested well.

How did Binary Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

They communicate well and are always focused on meeting deadlines. We collaborate through JIRA and also have Teams meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Firstly, I think the tech stack that they use internally — and specifically ASP.NET developers — is hard to find, so I’m impressed that they could provide those services.

In terms of scoping and onboarding, their process was very clear — I always understood the cost and expected deliverables. Their developers went above and beyond, looking to ensure that I was happy with their standard of work and that targets were being met. This isn’t always the case with other development partners.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing springs to mind. There’s always some uncertainty about how long things will take, but that’s the nature of development, rather than a specific issue with Binary.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I definitely recommend their services, and they are clear about what services they can perform. The best approach is to have a conversation with them and understand whether they can meet your requirements.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Olympe provide a bricks-based collaborative development environment. The idea is to compose application in an drag & drop environment. I'm the head of marketplace, meaning that I'm in charge of providing features (bricks) to help the development of applications of our customers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We want to provide a maximum of "on the shelf" features directly to our customers in order to accelerate the development of application. So in order to create those features (bricks) quickly we need some workforce to get the job done.

SOLUTION

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

We found them through a referral & selected them according to some technical interview against 2 others companies. The price was as well part of the decision of outsourcing to Binary Studio.

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

They integrate javascript libraries into the platform under the form of bricks (piece of software wrapped into olympe custom technology). We work in small sprints of 1 week quite closely. The priorities on the bricks to implements are set according to our customers priorities & the deliverable are the bricks themselves (which is olympe specific)

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

There was two junior developers that were in charge of implementing the bricks, under my lead.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

So we expect production of bricks here, even if we never mesured how many they exactly produced so far, we're satisfied with the rate of delivering. They managed to learn the olympe custom technology and became efficient quite quickly

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

They always met deadline when there was strict deadlines on the delivering of some bricks. We never encountered any turnover so far. All communications goes through microsoft teams for calls & discussions, jira for project management & git for the source code.

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

We had direct access to the whole team, which made it easier to communicate our ideas. Things can be lost in translation if you're only talking to a project manager.

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

Nothing come to my mind

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of technology at an insurance technology company that develops insurance lifecycle management products based on modern tech architecture. We intend to disrupt existing administration solutions across primary insurance, reinsurance, and multinational insurance integrations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Binary Studio?

Our company had a software delivery factory in India, but we were struggling with specific skill sets that were difficult to source internally. As a result, we searched for a partner that could fill in those gaps and shared the same values that we had. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Binary Studio supplied our team with seven resources across several tiers. We acquired resources up to tier five, which provided the most senior-level resource. They offered a tier-seven resource, but we didn’t need anybody with that skill level. Meanwhile, their team worked on two products, helping us accelerate the major releases of those products. Simply put, we used their services to reduce the products’ time to market. 

What is the team composition?

The team composition varied over the time we had them on board, but we worked with seven resources at most. 

How did you come to work with  Binary Studio?

We found Binary Studio on Clutch. Our team shortlisted a bunch of candidates and had initial conversations with them. As we looked around the market, we aimed to have geographic diversity as part of our risk management strategy. That way, we could protect our delivery velocity in case something happened in any of our facilities in the UK and India. With that in mind, we were predisposed to hiring a company from the Ukrainian market since we’d already worked with a vendor in that market before. 

Moreover, Binary Studio’s approach resonated with us. The team was upfront in saying that they weren’t the right partner for us if we were looking for a body shop with the lowest bid. However, if we were looking for a long-term, quality-focused engagement, then they were the right partner for our business. This helped us start with an honest and transparent footing; we had a high-quality initial impression of their team. As a result, we decided to hire them.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our partnership lasted from February–June 2021. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our main success metrics were story points — which pertained to their development velocity — and the defect rate. Their story points were positive. We had around 50–60 developers in total, and the seven Binary Studio developers were in the top 10% of the development velocity of the entire organization. Meanwhile, their defect rate was about half of the whole team’s average, which was quite a lift for us. 

On top of that, their services’ cost was highly competitive against what we would’ve gotten if we hired onshore companies. Overall, Binary Studio’s high-touch, high-quality approach to the engagement worked well for us.

How did Binary Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

Binary Studio’s developers were all well-trained; we had no real complaints about their skills. It took a couple of weeks for them to learn our system, but that was expected. For context, Binary Studio had an academy-like recruitment model where they ran an internship program for several hundred people every summer. The team then picked the cream of the crop from each batch and trained them for engagements with clients like us — this process worked well for our projects. 

In terms of adherence to schedule, we didn’t necessarily track any particular deliverable on any particular day. Instead, the alternative measure we used involved the accuracy of their estimates. More often than not, they hit those estimates, which was great for us. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The quality of Binary Studio’s work was their differentiator. The team consisted of strong individual contributors; there was no “passenger” in their team. Overall, the quality of their work was outstanding. Whatever they did in their academy program definitely worked for us. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

The downside of having a high-touch, high-quality model was that it was difficult to have a short-term planning horizon. We had to have our wits about us in terms of planning. For instance, our team had to ask for something a couple of months in advance if we wanted to sort things out. That being said, once we learned to deal with this constraint, Binary Studio always did their part. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don’t expect Binary Studio to be a body shop; you couldn’t just snap your fingers for people to appear at your door. That’s not what they do. Their strength lies in long-term partnerships. Overall, as long as you’re organized in the way you approach planning and strategic modeling, you’ll reap rewards. However, if you want to use Binary Studio as a body shop, then the engagement isn’t going to work.