NIX

Please describe your company and your position there.

Marketing Director at Leading Digital Marketing Agency

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

We wanted to redesign our corporate website and migrate to a more powerful CMS.

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

A colleague of mine recommended NIX. They have a reliable reputations. NIX offered a decent value for a reasonable price.

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

First the NIX team analysed the old website and interviewed me and other stakeholders about why the current site is not satisfying our needs anymore, and what should be improved. Afterwards they worked on the architecture and structure of the website (UX). After approval of UX they draw a few versions of new design for several pages (UI). After a couple of improvements and suggestions from our side they changed the design concept, so we liked it and approved.

They suggested using a Laravel framework (PHP) as it provides a great performance for web and mobile devices, while costing a little more than an ordinary WordPress site. Once the design was approved the coding doesn't took much time. There were minor bugs with layout on some screen sizes and browsers, but the fixed all of them on time. The integration with CRM, Marketing automation and Google analytics took more time than I expected, however works great now. The project was released on time.

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

5 people -Project manager -UX designer -UI designers -Front-end Engineer -Back-end Developer

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

We all like our new website: the structure is more convenient, it looks fresh and new. Google page speed results improved. Looking forward to improving the Conversion Rate and increase of the website traffic.

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

We had weekly online meetings: they showed us what was done and plans for the next week, got approval or feedback when needed. Used: Zoom, Telegram, Jira, Figma, Google sheets, Adobe

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

They were interested in making a great website they will be proud of. They're not just in it for the money.

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

I think some QA and integration works could be completed faster.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a software development manager for a travel content aggregator. I’m also the owner of numerous technical applications.

What challenge were you trying to address with NIX?

We needed extra development capacity for one of the applications that I own.

What was the scope of their involvement?

NIX provided development services to build a web application with backend services. Accessible via desktop and mobile, it enables corporate clients of our organization to make travel arrangements. Their team worked with NodeJS and the frontend was built with JavaScript technologies, Ruby, and AWS cloud development. They implemented availability search, notification, and alert features.

What is the team composition?

We worked with three teams but had a main point of contact.

How did you come to work with NIX?

I found their team to be technically capable.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started our collaboration in July 2017 and it’s nearly complete.

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

Anecdotally, NIX’s deliveries were good. Their level of collaboration and focus on delivering value was good. They participated in the delivery of test automation, which was a good enhancement. The quality of the deliveries was as expected.

How did NIX perform from a project management standpoint?

We used JIRA to track our work in every location. Their project management was good. I dealt with a project manager with whom I discussed and resolved any issues. They collaborated well across the company including teams based in other locations.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They performed well. Their contribution to test automation was the most valuable contribution relative to other agencies.

Are there any areas they could improve?

One area for improvement is in the strength of their communication.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Ensure that the assigned project manager has strong communication skills as we found that to be an effective way to improve the collaboration.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a startup to develop protections for connected and autonomous vehicles.

What challenge were you trying to address with NIX?

We didn’t have enough manpower or the capacity to complete a specific project, so we hired NIX to augment our staff.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They supported design and backend development, and really everything we couldn’t do ourselves. After we completed the specific project, we decided to continue working with them on another project. We plan to continue our collaboration focusing on QA.

What is the team composition?

The size of the team fluctuates depending on what we’re working on, but most of the time we have about 10 people working with us.

How did you come to work with NIX?

We met one of their employees here in Israel, and she introduced us to the company. At the time, we didn’t need their services, but business needs always change. So, when the situation came up and we needed an outside agency for support, we chose to work with NIX. We had a really good feeling about their team and the manager flew to

How much have you invested with them?

Roughly, we’ve spent about $350,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in April 2019, and we’ve been working with them on an ongoing basis.

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

We’re really happy with the quality of work they provide us. We have an expert that checks their work, but we have no complaints. We’ve been impressed by the team’s expertise and we plan to continue working with them.

How did NIX perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very professional and our project manager is a good team leader. She heads the staff and demonstrates a really high level of expertise. We had a really good experience working with the NIX team because they stuck to our schedule.

The local support team is in touch with us all the time to make sure the job gets done as planned. We call one another weekly, or sometimes daily. Everything has gone really well. Their staff even visited us all the way from Ukraine. Overall, customer experience is great.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They adapt to meet our needs. We cooperate really well with them, and they make adjustments so we don’t have any complaints.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t think so.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice would be to work with them. You just have to negotiate the price because there’s competition in this market.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the director of operations for CarSoup.com, an online automotive parts and car dealership.

For what projects/services did your company hire NIX Solutions?

We worked with NIX to develop a new company website.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted an updated website, database, and other processes to increase the speed, SEO, and overall UX.

How did you select this vendor?

We explored several different options for this project,k including an in-house development team and offshoring the project. Once we decided to outsource the project, we evaluated developers by their capabilities, client list, and reputation. We chose NIX because they had a large staff of skilled developers that specialized in the areas of development we needed.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

They handled project design, iteration, and implementation from the ground up, transferring no code from our old system. To help develop web content, they consulted with our president and me.

What was the team composition?

Their team is comprised of project managers, business analysts, UI/UX developers, PHP developers, quality assurance professionals, Elasticsearch developers, and others.

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

We’re seeing record website traffic and user engagement as a result of the rebuild. Our website is faster, stable, and has better SEO.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Their project managers and business analysts handled project management. We used Jira and Trello to keep track of progress.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The entire team at NIX was welcoming and easy to work with. The level of customer service and dedication of the staff is amazing.  Finding developers is not complicated, but finding ones that work well with your team is a difficult encounter.

Are there any areas where they can improve?

Although NIX made minor mistakes in the development process, their team learned from them and implemented procedures to avoid future errors.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the co-founder and head of product for a free career-preparation service. We arrange mock interviews for software engineers to practice speaking with recruiters. We observe the live interview and connect promising developers to top agencies with available career opportunities.

What challenge were you trying to address with NIX Solutions?

Our company was in its early stages and we have a relatively low budget. We wanted to accelerate our research and development processes and get a product on the market.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Nix worked with us on our brand visibility by creating public web pages for digital marketing. The team designed the platform’s entire experience and helped plan peripheral product features like the onboarding, scheduling, interviewing, and feedback processes. They programmed our system using MongoDB and Node.js for backend work and TypeScript, React.js, and Redux for frontend work. At one point, they were providing SEO guidance, but it was hard for us to get the results we wanted using an external service. The NIX team is now working to improve the platform and add new features.

What is the team composition?

NIX allowed us to choose the project structure. We could either have a single point of contact and a black-boxed development process or we could choose several engineers to work as part of our extended team and manage them directly. We chose to work with a full team that consisted of a project manager, frontend designer, backend developer, QA specialist, and a web designer. We let go of two additional engineers during the project because we had to consistently review their work to check for quality.

How did you come to work with NIX Solutions?

A friend’s colleague was connected to the company. They initiated our interaction, then we started working together directly.

How much have you invested with them?

We have spent between $150,000—$200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with NIX around January 2018 and the partnership is ongoing.

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

Since this was only an implementation project, we don’t have any metrics to quantitatively assess NIX’s impact on the project. They leverage their technical skills to overcome engineering challenges with alternative designs. Their work is reliable if done through the right process, but that adds cost and time to the project for both sides. Early in the project, we ran into quality issues. NIX’s developers were not able to work independently and they were not improving as the project moved forward. After replacing the necessary team members and bringing on a QA specialist, the level of work improved.

How did NIX Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

We used Trello, Slack, and GitLab to track progress and bring attention to necessary changes. Time zone differences hindered overall communication, but there were additional and frequent instances of miscommunication with the NIX team. Their engineers are technically strong but lack ownership of their work and responsive communication skills. The team writes good code, but preemptively starts projects without clarifying any points of ambiguity. Their outputs are solid, but usually not what we originally requested. Their work is inaccurate to the extent that a significant amount of our time is spent on reviewing and editing rather than on further developments.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Because they are a full-service agency, it is easy to bring in new resources on a case-by-case basis. They have been relatively accommodating of the workflow by allowing us to add or drop team members as necessary. The NIX team is reliable and sustainable, though not always accurate with their work on our project.

Any advice for potential customers?

NIX is the perfect solution for early businesses trying to find technically skilled software engineers at a low cost. I would recommend that anyone working with them set their expectations immediately and be extremely clear with task requirements. We might have had different results had we worked under a different management style, but in my experience, only the project manager understands and communicates efficiently. No matter the initial approach to team organization, in the later stages it is beneficial to work solely with the project manager and have him handle all interactions within the NIX team. Overall, potential customers should be proactive with communication and enter the engagement with a hands-on approach to timeline maintenance and team management.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of North Two Five, an agency that builds software as a service (SAAS).

What challenge were you trying to address with NIX Solutions?

I needed a vendor to rewrite an entire frontend for one of my clients. Another client asked me to fix a broken iOS app, so I reached out to NIX Solutions to resolve those issues and also help run one of their web apps.

What was the scope of their involvement?

NIX Solutions provides turnkey support. In my role as technical project manager, I send the team requirements to work from. They managed all the business with sprint planning and dev meetings. The team’s developers initially programmed with Angular and PHP.  Since then, I’ve had them use many other languages throughout different projects. Their server support and maintenance division set up all my infrastructure on platforms like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and DigitalOcean.

As NIX Solutions was fixing my client’s iOS app, they discovered the information scraper was broken. One of their Python developers resolved it and got the app up and running again. 

Another partner had a specific vision for their digital fundraising platform for schools. NIX Solutions wrote this solution in PHP and built it from scratch on Laravel with a MySQL backend. They included all the features we requested like social media sharing integration and sign up processes. I was just the oversight manager, so they handled all the business analysis and project management. 

What is the team composition?

I work with the director of project managers in the small and medium size project departments. I’ve worked with two other project managers, three other business analysts, and about ten different developers throughout our partnership.

How did you come to work with NIX Solutions?

My limited experience with outsourcing companies had been subpar based on code quality and lack of trust. My director’s contact had used NIX Solutions in the past and recommended using them. Initially, I felt pushed into this partnership and asked my director not to. I was pleasantly surprised by NIX Solutions and have built my entire business on their services at this point.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $250,000 on their work.

What is the status of this engagement?

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

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

The fundraising platform just launched this past spring. We’ve only run one school through it so far, and we’re going to make some adjustments. The products NIX Solutions delivered work well and have money for the schools we partner with.

For the other Angular platform, they delivered, we’ve rarely had any unforeseen problems like downtime at all. The few issues we had at the beginning were not their fault. They set up new infrastructure for us, and it’s run flawlessly ever since.

How did NIX Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

Their communication and project management has been excellent. We use Jira for project management and Confluence for future signoffs. We use a variety of Google Docs for questions, answers, and some preliminary things that we do. Google Docs works well for estimation line items, too. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I highly recommend them, even compared to U.S. teams. “NIX Solutions exceeds most comparable dev shops in their communication, documentation, and follow through.”

Are there any areas they could improve?

I had to have a conversation with 1-2 of their developers about how they structure their databases, but it was very minor. Whenever I’ve asked about any issue billing or hours, they’ve always made it right. They address everything right away and even take a pay cut if they have to. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I wouldn’t recommend outsourcing unless it’s with NIX Solutions. Get some consultation from someone who can provide code review and make sure it looks good. I haven’t seen code from every codebase that they develop in, but I have a good project manager. Treat them as part of your team instead of like an outsourcing company, and they’ll treat you the same way

Please describe your organization.

I work at an integrated quiz-based knowledge platform. We provide cultural institutions, museums, and galleries with a means of making and sharing quizzes in order to engage visitors.

What is your role at the company?

I am the founder and CEO.

What business challenge were you trying to address with NIX Solutions?

We needed a reliable and consistent development partner – specifically for the iOS and Android applications on our platform. We'd been through a variety of contractors and small development companies and were becoming very frustrated with the lack of consistency and quality.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

NIX Solutions built out the iPhone and Android apps and integrated them with the back-end data platform [Parse]. There was also associated development work with the cloud code and, in general terms, integrating the data and analytics components of the platform with the apps.

How did you come to work with NIX Solutions?

We had previously tried a number of developers via recruitment platforms like Elance [now Upwork] and through people that we knew but were not satisfied. It was a "make-or-break" moment in the project, so we went through a very extensive selection process before deciding on NIX Solutions.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The cost will be between $10,000 and $50,000. The project and our partnership with NIX Solutions is ongoing.

What is the status of this engagement?

The initial phase was around three months, and we've continued to work sporadically with them for the last few months. We're gearing up for another development push soon, which will last for an additional three months.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The product has been developed to a point where we can make initial sales. There was much to do and NIX Solutions did it very well. Since that initial push, we have been working on a more fluid and flexible basis regarding feature development, which has also been working well.

What distinguishes NIX Solutions from other providers?

Initially, I was skeptical about the role of the project manager on their side, but I think having a liaison one step removed from the development team has worked excellently. It has made it much easier for us to coordinate and understand one another.

In hindsight, are there areas in which they could improve or things you might do differently?

NIX Solutions has many of their technical bases covered, but the addition of some Python programmers would be good.

Please describe your organization.

I work for a management consulting and software manufacturing firm.

What is your position?

I am the CEO.

What business challenge were you trying to address with NIX Solutions?

Our software runs on servers in the cloud, and we were looking for a way to manage that 24 hours a day.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

NIX Solutions manages the infrastructure of our servers. They monitor the updates and handle any issues that arise.

How did you come to work with NIX Solutions?

My company does a lot of work with the Ukraine, and we were referred to them by a colleague.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

This project was in the $10,000 to $50,000 range.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been with them since 2008 and have done multiple projects with them.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

NIX Solutions has benefited my business by allowing us to have additional expertise on call. We've been able to supplement our existing staff and it has allowed us to avoid having to hire more people. They became an extension of our own internal setup. They were there as an additional resource.

How did NIX Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

We have never had an issue.

What distinguishes NIX Solutions from other providers?

NIX Solutions has a very good customer management approach. They have one person we deal with, and he keeps the relationship fed and watered. The staff is very easy to talk to and get on with. They have a good team, and they've formed into a good structure themselves.

Is there anything NIX Solutions could have improved or done differently?

There isn't anything that could be improved upon.

Please briefly describe what your company does and the role that you play there?

I am the founder and director of Stories360. We create GPS-based audio tours.

What was the business challenge that you were trying to address when you approached NIX Solutions?

We have been building our business strategy for the past couple of years and are just about to launch the applications in May [2015]. Our challenge was solely development based. We had technical project management capability, so we just needed a competent development team.

Can you talk about the scope of the project, what were the exact services or methodologies NIX Solutions provided or implemented?

We had detailed specifications for several pieces of technology that we wanted to build and NIX has provided that development and project management for us.

Can you give us a sense of the size of the project in dollar terms or personnel work hours?

Our project has two separate components the iOS application development and the Web application development. We have spent about $70,000 with NIX Solutions so far.

When working with them, was there anything unique or special about them compared to other companies with which you may have worked?

The NIX Solutions team is very responsive, upfront, and strive to deliver on time and on budget.

Looking back on the project, is there any area that they could improve upon or that you would have them do differently?

One thing that could improve is the management of bug reporting. The process could be more streamlined. NIX Solutions was happy to manage bug reporting in whatever form we proposed, which was nice and flexible. However, it probably would be more effective if they proposed a method of managing bug reporting that they preferred.

I'm the president of a company that provides a free live streaming webcam website to an audience of tens of thousands of visitors per day since 2009. The site works on a 'freemium' model whereby users can pay a fee for access to additional tools and services. Our company is based out of Canada and the United States. Our marketing and strategy head office is located in Canada, servers and hardware management in the United States. Programming and technical aspects are handled in the United States and outsourced abroad. Our target audience is 18- to  60-year-old Web surfers in the webcam entertainment market.

The launch of Facebook in 2008 signaled a new era in ecommerce that we wanted to be a part of. We wanted to provide interactive social media via webcam streaming to replicate the social aspects of Facebook, but go another step and include live visual interaction.

In 2009, we hired NIX Solutions to develop the webcam platform for us. The work appeared consistent and on schedule. However, the quality of the work provided by NIX Solutions became readily apparent, on the day the site launched to a live audience. It crashed under the initial traffic, which was no more than a few hundred visitors to the site.

We continued to grow the website while routinely dealing with site crashing, intractable bugs, delayed development, and poor support for three more years. By that time, the window of opportunity afforded by being a 'first-mover' had evaporated and our business had been leapfrogged by newer efficient copycat versions of our platform.

Since outsourcing our needs to an alternate IT [information technology] company, development has been smooth and productive. It's taken a long time to repair the damage that NIX Solutions did to our business, but we've done it. NIX Solutions compromised and undermined our business [so much] that it is only through sheer will and some luck that our business survived. We would not recommend NIX Solutions to a company seeking IT services.