The Challenge
This company had already experienced false starts with two other agencies, and the freelancer they hired to fix the resulting problems wasn’t able to meet their expectations.
Though a number of Clear Function’s past clients had already recommended our team, the perceived price was a problem at first. Clear Function’s senior developers were more expensive than other agencies that utilize offshore resources.
By the time the tech startup’s CEO restarted the conversation with us in January, they still didn’t have an MVP
in place for an upcoming trade show in the spring. We agreed to salvage what we could from the existing codebase (something many dev firms won’t do), look for ways to help them cut costs, and adhere to a very aggressive timeframe.
The Process
From the start, the Clear Function team did more than just build on a franchise management software product.
Clear Function’s primary goal was to help the client preserve as much of their existing investment as they could – rather than try to talk them into significant and costly changes or rebuilds.
Based on the current state of affairs, we worked with the client on a realistic scope of what we could accomplish before the trade show. That meant making some tough calls about what features to prioritize in a minimum viable product and what non-essential functionality to save for later sprints. Meanwhile, we designed and
implemented a complete development process to make the whole project run smoothly.
We set up a source control and automated deployments. We implemented issue tracking and stories. We utilized a SCRUM/AGILE process to manage and talk about the ever-evolving list of priorities. The rigorous planning and process paid off. Clear Function had the v.1 alpha ready for the trade show, just as we had promised.
The Outcome
The response from the trade show was overwhelmingly positive. Once Clear Function proved that we understood the client’s vision and constraints, our relationship with them evolved into a comprehensive consulting role.
The client let us in on their big picture strategy, and we managed all aspects of their development process, which included budgeting for development costs, managing third-party resources at a reasonable price, conducting code reviews, and reporting back about the progress and breakthroughs. We were able to stabilize the existing code base, reduce the client’s Azure costs by 60%, and improve performance at the same time. We then implemented a scalable development process and optimized that process for productivity and client visibility.
Clear Function continues to add new features and functionality to the existing product. Here’s what the CEO had to say about working with Clear Function: