Mad Devs

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a consultant for an international trade organization that provides technical assistance to SMEs in developing countries through different types of interventions and large-scale projects.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Mad Devs?

We are working on an export management project for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Central Asia. We’ve developed a whole package for the SMEs and Mad Devs is helping digitize the intervention by supporting web development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They built a website and web-based application to help us coordinate between different actors, such as the SMEs themselves, experts on the ground, and institutional organizers from our office. All of our users can access the platform through a login portal.

SMEs can use the platform to review information on our mission, while our coaches and experts will use the platform to report their missions. They will also be able to access reports from other coaches to cross-check information and select the SME’s they’d like to work with.

Finally, the platform also helps organize travel arrangements for experts working in the area.

What is the team composition?

There two engineers, one manager, and one HR assistant.

How did you come to work with Mad Devs?

My organization is working with a consultant in Kyrgyzstan, where Mad Devs is located. They recommended Mad Devs, so we spoke with them and they were super friendly. They understood our needs and came up with a solution very quickly. On top of that, they were very flexible during the COVID-19 situation. It was a no-brainer to work with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent roughly $20,000–$30,000

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in November 2020 and the project is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They completed the web app recently and implemented the solution two weeks ago. Both the institutional partner and organization we’re working with on the ground agreed that this helps coordinate interventions. Not only does it help them select SMEs to work with, but it helps them organize reports and logistical tasks.

Although we’re still waiting for feedback from SMEs, we’ve received great reviews from our coaches.

How did Mad Devs perform from a project management standpoint?

They were excellent. The agency I’m working with can be very bureaucratic, so it wasn’t easy to come up with clear deadlines. Nevertheless, they’ve been flexible and have delivered as we requested so far.

We communicate through Slack on a daily basis, but we also use email and Zoom for weekly meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

This is my first time partnering with a company from Kyrgyzstan, so I didn’t know what to expect or how we could communicate. However, they’ve been super professional. They take the time to thoroughly understand our needs, ask questions, and communicate with us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Right now, I don’t see anything they need to improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Communicate your needs clearly and they’ll be very understanding. It’s also important that you communicate with them regularly.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a partner and director of shipping for NambaFood. Our platform has over 250 cafes and restaurants in town, shops, pharmacies and more.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We contacted Mad Devs regarding the development and support of software for delivery service. We wanted to create an intuitive tool for ordering food, goods, and more. As a result, the user was supposed to get a fast way to place an order with advantageous conditions and online payment. Adding a new counterparty should be easy for a manager, with sales numbers also available in real-time.

Operators and couriers were expected to instantly process the order. We also wanted to make it a solution for the faster launch of similar services in different countries of the world.

SOLUTION

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

Mad Devs team was a very well known vendor of complex IT services in Central Asia. The team behind this brand included people who invested a lot of their personal time and effort into the development of IT expertise in this region. We witnessed the professional growth of Mad Devs and decided to partner with them.

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

It was necessary to develop a service that would integrate:

• a web site two applications for end-users (iOS and Android ones)
• applications for couriers (the Android one)
• administrative panel for managers to manage contractors (cafes & shops)
• call center for a unified system for managing couriers

All this should come with technical support. Goals were identified, big tasks were discussed and split into smaller ones. Everyone involved with the project knew why this or that feature was needed.

We even documented the desired actions for the after launch phase. As a result, with each iteration, we got access to a solid, mature, and intuitive solution with a beautiful design, and most importantly, a user-friendly interface.

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

During the launch and post-launch phases, the Mad Devs team working on the project was large. Сurrently we have a total of 5 people involved in the project as its maintainers. There's a project manager,  DevOps PHP developer, Android developer, and iOS developer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Thanks to our good relationships, Mad Devs’ professional execution of tasks, our leadership’s clear vision, and everyone’s focus on success, the number of orders in our project grows by 53% YoY.

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

We have daily stand-ups and weekly sprint closures. Every 15 days we receive a report for the previous period. We communicate via Jira, Slack, Telegram, Skype, GitHub, etc.

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

Mad Devs have extensive experience in various industries, which allows them to solve issues quickly and efficiently. They are constantly training their team members.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There's no limit to perfection. They know that, and so they're constantly improving.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

CEO, Founder

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Mad Devs?

We worked with Mad Devs on Progressay. This is an AI-based service enabling teachers to faster mark essays and helping students to get feedback fast.

What were your goals for this project?

To build a simple and intuitive landing page and improve our user experience

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We were researching interesting e-learning startups based in the UK and got impressed by the great job Mad Devs did for Teacherly.

Describe the project in detail.

Mad Devs created the landing page for our project working on its design and UX/UI developing user scenarios for better conversions. They really go above and beyond as the team also provides us consulting for business process and strategy.

What was the team composition?

Web Designer and Project Manager worked with us directly, though I also had a chance to meet their CEO.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

With a more compelling design and improved usability of our project we were able to more effectively attract new users and retain our existing customers. The feedback from end users is positive which means that the design works well.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Project management was very well organized, Mad Devs have nearly everything automated with detailed reports coming from every team member. Their designer worked closely with our development team serving as a team extension, which was amazing. The CEO who facilitated the process of international payment for us also was impressively accommodating.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

What I like most about Mad Devs is their responsiveness and transparency. They are ready to demonstrate progress and always open to discussions.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not really, I’m quite content with their work and would turn to Mad Devs again in the future.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We offer a top online restaurant reservation platform in South-East Asia founded in 2013. I was one of the first Product Managers in company and Product Owner of Billing System.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Mad Devs?

We were working on building brand new version of platform including web, mobile and accounting. We've hired MadDevs to - build PWA (Progressive Web Application) for customer and merchant services - Billing System for accounting.

What were your goals for this project?

The goal for PWA was to be closely same convenient, easy to use and responsive as native mobile application. It includes all the functionality of desktop web or mobile app. The goal for Billing System was to provide one cross-country solution for custom accounting and report system.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We've compared many studios taking into account the experience, a presence of big and complicated solutions in portfolio, reputation and price for sure.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

As I had an expertise in software development - we've worked together on system architecture and technical solutions. We've started with the requirements analysis and guys dive deep into details. We've worked in a short iterations in agile mode, always staying tuned and synced up.

What was the team composition?

We've started with a few software developers whom I've managed directly and worked very close with as a project manager. We've involved more people when it's needed. There were backend and frontend engineers, some combine team lead roles.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The new Billing System allows to organize accounting across all 6 countries much better, reduce manual work and replace third party software with customizable in-house solution that being developed. PWA allows to reduce user acquisition cost and increase conversion rate for web users.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

As a product and project manager I've directly operated with the development team, we decomposed tasks, planed iterations and updated timelines.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We've had a very effective collaboration working as one team. Developers showed great attitude by coming up with improvement ideas and solutions to prevent an issues in future when system going to be changed according to business needs.

Are there any areas for improvement?

One small thing to improve is careful management and proper usage of junior developers by senior/team lead to avoid a situation when some task that done by junior could cost the same price as done by senior but took longer.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for the world’s largest blockchain development and incubation company. We focus on R&D, application infrastructure solutions, and consulting. I am in charge of business strength and marketing for one of our subgroups.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Mad Devs?

We had a lot of work to do and not enough people to do it. It was difficult to find people with skills in blockchain, especially smart contract, development, and security analysis tools.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our first collaboration was a workforce issue; we needed some people to do specific work. Mad Devs stepped in and helped us get several pieces of our project and product done. After that, we continued working with Mad Devs on specifications, development, and testing for the security modules of a hosted SaaS service. Some were in Python while others were in Solidity, which is specific to blockchain and Ethereum.  

We’re working on a big project that’s just about to launch. We’ve had a lot of milestones involving acquiring and building technology. They’re also integrating it into a platform that we’ve created.

What is the team composition?

Mad Devs lets us choose our resources. Initially, we chose one person from Mad Devs to work on one of our open-source projects. Afterward, they assigned 6–7 developers to another project that involved an audit security analysis engine and API.

How did you come to work with Mad Devs?

Since some of their members were already contributing to our open-source projects, we decided to reach out more formally based on the skill set they demonstrated on Ethereum. Their pricing was extremely reasonable, and they filled a gap we had.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve spent over $200,000 on their services. They charge an hourly rate and send quarterly statements of work.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Mad Devs 12–15 months ago, and we’ve been collaborating ever since. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The Mad Devs team arrived and contributed immediately, helping us reach our milestones as we approached alpha and beta releases. We’re a remote team so we can pretty much choose to work with any developer on the planet, but we continue to work with Mad Devs. They are good at what they do.

How did Mad Devs perform from a project management standpoint?

It has been fantastic. Their communication is excellent. We collaborate using Discord servers and Slack, along with a bit of email. We had Trello boards for the project team, along with weekly and biweekly project status calls. Our projects are broken up into two-week sprints, and we test the work at the end of each one. We have a lot of flexibility.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Mad Devs went above and beyond what a typical contractor would deliver. Instead of giving us exactly what we asked for, they offered alternatives. They even mocked up prototypes, then implemented and tested them for us. They think about the product as though it is their own. Mad Devs quickly became an important part of our team, and they’ve remained that way. We don’t want to let them go.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing comes to mind.  

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I can see a client going through a trial period to see which resource is the best fit, but we didn’t have to do that with Mad Devs. Certain individuals can be better matches for the technology or team in place, and Mad Devs is flexible in accommodating this.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m a co-founder of Namba Taxi. We’re an on-demand taxi service.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Mad Devs?

We brought on Mad Devs to build our entire IT system (core IT engine, consumer and driver apps, and management information system).

What were your goals for this project?

We needed an entire technology system to run an on-demand taxi business.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We appreciated Mad Devs’ entrepreneurial, flexible approach and ability to handle tight timeframes and budgets. Our interests were completely aligned.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They developed our entire infrastructure including iOS and Android applications for customers, Windows and Android driver applications, a backend system, and a dispatching module, which is a call center that accepts orders and coordinates with drivers. They built everything from scratch.

What was the team composition?

Initially, we worked with two developers—a lead engineer and another software engineer. The team has since grown to five people.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Mad Devs’ software has allowed us to become a leading taxi company in our country. The various ways customers can order taxis (SMS, phone call, mobile app) has driven this growth. The most important result has been software stability during peak usage. 

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They work as if their own money and success are on the line. Their flexibility and continuous desire to improve stand out to us.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, not that I’ve seen. They’re one of the best software development companies I’ve worked with.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO at Veeqo, a platform for large e-commerce businesses. We automate their work and are a software as a service (SaaS) company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Mad Devs?

We started with hosting our application on an infrastructure as a service which was quite expensive but allowed us to host our application without an in-house system administrator. However, it became too expensive, so we needed a system administrator or a dev op engineer to move to another hosting platform and start automating what we already have.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’ve been responsible for our entire infrastructure—everything running any application, code, or serving data was under their scope. They did anything from the database to application servers from caching to project management; from the main management to firewalls. The technology was defined by us. We use Amazon Web Services (AWS), Docker, and PostgreSQL.

What is the team composition?

The contract was for one dev ops engineer, but we get the expertise of the entire team. Even if the person we’re working with directly is stuck or lacks some knowledge, the entire team backs that person up.

How did you come to work with Mad Devs?

Finding an experienced, good quality dev op engineer is extremely difficult. We started to look for such people via agencies, while I also searched my network and some people recommended Mad Devs. They turned out to have an entire team of senior dev-ops engineers.

We were clear about what we needed, and Mad Devs made an offer with dev op. We met that person and agreed they were what we needed.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend thousands of dollars per month. It’s comparable with the monthly salary of a good dev ops engineer.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2016 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The dev op assigned to us was the perfect match. They were the best person we could ever dream of. It was exactly what we needed.

We’re very pleased with what we have now. Our infrastructure is much more resilient and secure, and we’ve improved automation. We’ve also managed to cut our expenses significantly.

How did Mad Devs perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is great. We’re a remote first company, so we treat the dev op as if we hired them ourselves.

If our developers have any requests, they go straight to that person. I also regularly meet with them to check the plans and what has been done.

What did you find most impressive about them?

What stands out with them is the amount of talent they’ve managed to find and hire—it’s rare that one company has so much.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Keep in mind you’re not only buying expertise of one person, but the expertise of the entire team that’s partnered with that person.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a content manager at an NGO that works in the public health sector.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We wanted to improve our existing app to enable more capabilities for users and administrators, improve it UI/UX-wise, fix reoccurring bugs, and change some functionality. We also wanted to invite someone with established processes to take our project to the next level and turn it into a turnkey project.

SOLUTION

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

We started a call for proposals and invited companies to bid. Out of 3 companies, we selected Mad Devs, since they have offered us great terms and proved their qualifications.

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

We had several key milestones to complete:

1. Project Review, setup, and list all the needed changes & updates
2. Development of all the necessary functions
3. Platform’s hosting updates and app updates on Play Market As for the technologies, the app itself was written in Kotlin, the team developed the backend in Python (Django) and we used several integrations such as Firebase to solve basic needs such as sessions management, etc.

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

We worked with a small team from Mad Devs: 

• Delivery manager Anatoliy, who was responsible for the end-to-end delivery of the project and all legal & budget agreements
• Project Manager Zhazgul managed the project and its development, organized meetings, prioritized tasks, and did a great job formulating our desires into a step-by-step plan
• Faride, Ivan, and Rustom as Android devs
• Ilya and Sergey for the backend development. They did a good job fixing what was missing after the development of our first version
• Vlada as UI/UX designer. She managed to improve our UI and add needed components that were missing

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Together with the project manager we formed a list of all project requirements
• Also with MP we came up with a project roadmap and tickets in Atlassian JIRA
• The team updated the project documentation in Atlassian Confluence
• The team setup code repositories for the app & backend using GitLab + setup CI pipelines
• The team provided us with hosting & domain name solutions so that we could test the app properly before a release
• The team has built an admin panel for us to better monitor the app’s data
• I have received and tested the updated app and recognize a lot of improvements and bug fixes  
• The team was also very accommodating in terms of providing support after the completion of deliverables

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

The Mad Devs team proved themselves to be a well-established company with agile tools and systems for smooth communication and management of the project. They were transparent about every detail of the project and always reachable through email, Slack, and Jira.

I collaborated with the team throughout the project by staying in touch with them on the above mentioned tools as well as by attending their weekly live meetings. The team always worked on schedule and was able to deliver everything on time as they had promised.

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

They were not only easy to approach and fun to work with, but also they took the project to their heart and were ready to discuss even the little bits and pieces we sometimes seemed to miss. I greatly appreciate their attention to detail.