Kambda

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO and Co-Founder of Operation 36 Golf. We are a developmental golf program and technology that is designed to take somebody from their first round of golf and give them the plan to become a skilled life-long golfer.

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

We hired Kambda for our iOS and Android Development.

How did you select Kambda and what were the deciding factors?

They were highly recommended by a couple of our colleagues. My main deciding factor is it was apparent that they were very organized, cared more about understanding the project versus selling us, and have an authentic passion for doing great work.

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

We have an ongoing scope of work with their company now. Each release is set up via an Asana board and we work in sprints to meet our deliverables. Daily Standups and Afternoon project status updates keep the team aligned.

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

3

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

They were open to adapting to our systems and also providing feedback on where we can improve to ensure we are being as efficient as possible.

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

They have been the best company we have worked with to ensure that we are meeting deliverables and keeping up with our timelines.

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

Their communication, leadership and ability to get the tasks done within their preset timelines.

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

As of right now, I have no feedback for their team.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the managing partner of a CPA firm, and my focus is on tax accounting. I offer personalized accounting services for select clients.

What challenge were you trying to address with Kambda?

I needed Kambda to develop a CRM that streamlined the internal staff operations of one of my clients in the horse racing industry.

What was the scope of their involvement?

It’s a small project for one of my clients’ accounting staff operations. It was taking them too long to manually input data and perform accounting functions, so they needed a system that could expedite those internal processes. 

Kambdar helped me deliver what they asked for by automating a particular function of our firm’s accounting services. They provided tech solutions by creating a CRM system that tracked the client’s horse racing transactions and condensed these into six data lines.

What is the team composition?

We mainly worked with Emilio (CEO) and two of their programmers.

How did you come to work with Kambda?

It was my brother who referred Kambda’s team to me. Since my brother was obviously happy with their services, I was certain that I’ll feel the same, too.

How much have you invested with them?

I spent around $15,000–$20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The engagement started in November 2019, and the last iterations were implemented in July 2020. I’m about to start a bigger project with their team.

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

My client’s internal staff reported that it usually took them a day or two just to manage the horse race transactions, while it only took them 15 minutes to do the same using Kambda’s system. I talked to other business owners in the same industry and they encountered the same pipeline issues. 

I could’ve suggested Excel data management to cut down on expenses, but I went ahead and onboarded Kambda to develop a seamless system — the metrics didn’t lie and we definitely got the results we needed. We’re also looking forward to achieving more milestones through this product as we apply more iterations in the future.

How did Kambda perform from a project management standpoint?

We mainly communicated through phone calls and emails. There was no need for us to follow up or check on the status of their work because Kambda just knew how to do everything at the right pace. I’ve been used to hovering around to check the work of someone I hired, but I didn’t have to do that in this engagement. We paid Kambda, and they basically managed the entire project for us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Kambda was not just an agency that I hired, but a business partner that I could trust and shared the same interests with. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I didn’t think there were areas that needed improvement. I definitely got what I paid for.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Think about what you want to achieve and consider it within different scenarios — explore these possibilities ahead of time to avoid going back and forth during the actual engagement.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a sole proprietor delivering consulting and development services to AMLAW 100 law firms

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

We were looking to productize a service that we had standardized and wanted expert development assistance with reviewing the prototype code base and extending the tool to meet the wider market needs. We needed rapid review and scalability.

How did you select Kambda and what were the deciding factors?

We ran a search of nearshore development studios and picked a selector of 4 based on their public project portfolios that aligned with the project. We ran a scoping exercise with each and selected based on the ability to rapidly understand, spec and deliver.

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

The application consumes data in a proprietary XML format and uses the D3 JS library to render the data in a selection of custom data visualizations. The tool runs embedded in a popular SaaS platform which complicates the implemetation.

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

2 people, a developer and project manager.

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

New feature versions we increased from weekly to multiple new features daily, accelerating the timeline for delivery from 6 months down to 6 weeks!

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

The team use Slack and the proprietary platform that the software is be embedded in. This flexibility has a double benefit, allowing the project team to better understand the end-user perspective and simplifying the product stack I need to work with.

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

Their flexibility has been amazing, in terms of tools used, approaches to problems, and required resource time.

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

Nothing

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO at SentryTell, LLC. We have an application that provides a way for caretakers of seniors who are still living at home to monitor their activity level. The app connects to a hub in the seniors’ house, and it stores and analyzes data, reports that data on the app, and sends alerts when things aren’t right at the seniors’ home.

What challenge were you trying to address with Kambda?

The app was functional when Kambda took it on but the issue was that the UI was very poor. Therefore, we needed to update some of the screens and make it more user-friendly.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The initial plan was to update some of the screens on the UI side, but we ended up doing a complete app rebuild. They did some graphic design as part of the app build-out. In addition, they’ve helped us with AWS, which we use for database management.

We’re live and in production, but our work with Kambda is ongoing.

What is the team composition?

At the peak of the project, eight developers were involved in various aspects.

How did you come to work with Kambda?

Kambda was recommended to me by a colleague. I looked at the work they did for this colleague. I also researched the apps they had done for other companies and saw that the functionality was there. 

I chose them based on a combination of two things: their skillset to get the job done and the price point. We’re a startup, and having the project done in the US would’ve been significantly more expensive for us. They were a very good middle ground answer for me.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $30,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working in October 2020 and our engagement is ongoing. We’ll be working with them for quite a while.  

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

We’re too early in the process, so we don’t have any metrics. However, the pre-production people involved in the testing phase have all responded very positively.

How did Kambda perform from a project management standpoint?

We used a number of Slack channels to communicate with them. Kambda’s team is located in Central America, and they are fluent in English. 

I’m pretty happy with Kambda, and I’d recommend them to anybody. It has ended up being a bigger project than I thought because they initially underestimated the amount of work required for the app. Furthermore, there were times when I wanted changes on the app, which modified the scope of the project as we went further.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s the depth and breadth of their technology skills. Whenever we had an issue that the current development team wasn’t well-versed in, they always had somebody else to fill that skill gap. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Kambda doesn’t really work with deadlines very much. If a certain aspect of the project needed to be done by a certain day, we needed to make sure that they understood, because Kambda doesn’t typically work that way.    

Any advice for potential customers?

It would be helpful to communicate the deadlines clearly and make sure that everyone is meeting those deadlines.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am founder and CEO of a SAS company in the concussion management space.

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

Web app and mobile app software development and integration.

How did you select Kambda and what were the deciding factors?

Cost, expertise and referrals.

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

Kambda continues to develop and upgrade our web and mobile apps with good communication skills. They encourage design participation and feedback. There is a web app and a mobile app (on both iOS and Android) that interface. The back end of the web app is on Ruby on Rails.

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

3-4 depending on the scope of work including the owners/project managers and dedicated software developers.

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

Accurate assessments of time needed for projects. Emilio, Silvia and their team have shown great software development organizational skills, deliver on their promises promptly, and work tirelessly to achieve their benchmarks.

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

Agile style storyboard project management including Pivotal Tracker and Trello.

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

Excellent customer communication and relations. In addition to their skills as developers, they have often stepped in to address support issues and are always keeping the end user feedback in mind to come up with improvements.

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

I really don’t have anything to place in the cons/weakness category. Kambda has been a perfect match for our needs. I highly recommend them without reservations.

Please describe your company and your position there.

CEO of Find.com, Inc.

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

We hired Kambda to help us develop a new search engine concept. The concept was to create a search engine that would allow users to create their own "Find Engines" (Don't Just Search - Find!) comprised of sites that the user wants to get results from. They could create their own Shopping Find Engine, or their own Sports Find Engine, etc. Users could also share their Find Engines with others.

How did you select Kambda and what were the deciding factors?

We used an outsourcing expert called Accelerance who evaluated our needs and introduced us to a few overseas candidates. We selected Kambda based on their expertise, responsiveness, culture, and English-language skills. Their time zone was also close to ours.

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

Kambda performed multiple projects/steps for us:

1. Set up Project and integrated with GIT
2. Re-established modal window feature
3. Migration to AWS. We also had a pre-existing server issue that we had not been able to resolve ourselves, and Kambda fixed it immediately.
4. Developed our Find Engines, including ability to create, modify, save and delete custom find engines.
5. Integrated google analytics.
6. Added screens and functionality based on a prototype we had created.
7. Electron app embedded inside the script so that the Find.com system could work as a standalone app.
8. Created the concept of a mini browser instead of using the search engine script we started with.

Technology used: HTML5, PHP, MySQL, CSS, JavaScript

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

We worked directly with Silvia Charpentier and Emilio Acosta, who are the principals of Kambda.

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

Kambda was able to deliver all of their projects ahead of schedule, but the biggest win for us was the added value they contributed along the way. They came up with better ways to do things, better features, alternative technical solutions, etc. The investors we shared the technology with were all impressed.

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

They set us up on a Slack Channel, and we also had regular Skype calls. They were always responsive when we needed something, and their professionalism and relationship focus made it easy to work with them. Sometimes you dread having to talk to technical people, but it was the opposite with Kambda.

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

They handled everything for us. We didn't have to get in the weeds with specific developers or handle all the project management detail. Silvia and Emilio were very personable and professional and took care of making sure everything worked on time, on budget, and in a lot of cases better than what we had originally expected.

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

Not that I can think of. I have referred them to multiple other people since, and I wouldn't do that if I had any concerns.

Please describe your company and your position there.

WineGlass Marketing offers DTC Marketing for the Wine and Spirits industry. I am the Director of Technology

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

We needed someone to take over the development of a ROR application that acts as integration between Mailchimp and a wine-based eCommerce/CRM platform Commerce7. We need someone to make code improvements and help us add new features to the application as well as help with maintenance.

How did you select Kambda and what were the deciding factors?

We have tried other offshore development houses (India and Ukraine) and had difficulties with the time difference. Kambda is only a couple of hours different times wise and that makes it easier to work with them. They also have highly skilled English-speaking employees which makes it easier to communicate overall.

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

Programming in Ruby on Rails and managing the application that sits on Heroku. They helped us switch to new APIs that were not rate limited, added some features that let us bypass our migration process, helped us pass new and more data between the applications we are integrating.

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

A developer, the CTO and a Sys admin (3 people).

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

They are smart and they deliver their services particularly well. They are very knowledgeable, hard-working, and make themselves available.

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

We use Slack and Zoom for communications. We use Asana to manage tasks.

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

I impressed with their willingness to find solutions and talk out solutions. Many contractors I have used in the past, just want the facts and they disappear and then reappear with a solution which usually has to be tweaked over and over again.

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

I think most of this is on me. Making sure I am giving them clear requirements.