Escola

Please describe your company and your position there.

The Wealthon Fund is a company that responds quickly and quickly to helping entrepreneurs with ongoing cost problems. We created Wealthon because we believe that it is possible to make everyday life easier for entrepreneurs. Our goal is to remove barriers for entrepreneurs in the context of financing their companies.

Our products are fully digital. In the company I am a Systems & Solutions manager.

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

We hired Escola to create an innovative, integrated IT system for our financial products that would both calculate the financial risk for our products and act as a CRM for our company.

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

Our team was looking for various suppliers of IT solutions to undertake our project. After a dozen or so meetings, we decided to use Escola's services, mainly due to their approach to cooperation and the positive opinions of friendly companies that used their services.

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

Firstly, we had a series of meetings to explain and discuss the specifications of our project. During the first months, we gradually received mock-ups and designs of other parts of our system. Each implementation was preceded by a testing phase and meetings to discuss our feedback.

We continue to work with Escola to improve and develop our system. The development, testing and implementation of the new stages of the project run very smoothly in the appropriate development sprints.

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

During the implementation of our project, I had meetings mostly with our project manager, who was our main point of contact. However, in some stages, I also met with developers (frontend developers and backend developers).

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

The implementation of the system has significantly improved the work in our company. Especially in terms of assessing the financial risk of our clients. The time for analyzing applications for financing is much more efficient. The time was reduced to 24 hours! It allows us to process more applications than before.

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

Communication with our project manager was smooth, with at least weekly phone calls, frequent updates and regular interaction via the backlog system. Delivery was usually on time, in case of any delays we were informed in advance.

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

Escol's knowledge of creating systems and databases, UX and optimization were extraordinary. We learned much more than we thought possible and appreciated their patience and care during the implementation of the project. Previously, we cooperated with agencies in various areas of our company, which had much less knowledge than the Escola team in the UX.

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

Everything can always be done more quickly, but we were very satisfied with their work. Ultimately, quality is more important than speed, and we ended up with a great system.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a marketing specialist at Wydawnictwo C.H.Beck, which is a publishing house based in Poland.

What challenge were you trying to address with Escola?

Part of our work is organizing events and courses. We wanted to build a mobile application that included all of the events and schedules.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Escola is responsible for developing an app for Android and iOS. Using this app, users can choose from all of the events and sign up for them. Also, they can download presentations and other materials to learn more about the topic at home.

What is the team composition?

I work with one person who always helps us solve any issues. Some developers work on the project, too.

How did you come to work with Escola?

We found them through some online pages. We saw an app that they built for another company. We wanted to have an app like that for ourselves. They were open to change their initial proposition to fit our needs, so we decided to start working with them.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve spent somewhere between $10,000–$50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement began in January 2020, and it’s ongoing.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Escola is responsible for developing an app for Android and iOS. Using this app, users can choose from all of the events and sign up for them. Also, they can download presentations and other materials to learn more about the topic at home.

What is the team composition?

I work with one person who always helps us solve any issues. Some developers work on the project, too.

How did you come to work with Escola?

We found them through some online pages. We saw an app that they built for another company and wanted to have an app like that for ourselves. They were open to change their initial proposition to fit our needs, so we decided to start working with them.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve spent somewhere between $10,000–$50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement began in January 2020, and it’s ongoing.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a marketing specialist in the TOPAZ store chain, which includes over 130 stores located in central and eastern Poland. I am responsible for the content in our mobile app.

For what projects/services did your company hire Qunabu Interactive/ Escola S.A.?

We started cooperation with Escola because we did not have a mobile application yet. After careful analysis of our clients' needs and the directions in which the market is developing, we decided that we need a partner who will help us to create an application that our clients will love.

What were your goals for this project?

The aim of our application was to gain new customers and make it easier for existing customers to use our loyalty system. It is worth noting that we have exceeded the download threshold for our applications several times, which we initially set as our target for 2020.

How did you select Qunabu Interactive/ Escola S.A.?

At the stage of searching for a suitable agency to prepare the application for us, the marketing department was primarily involved. Our team carefully analyzed the applications available on the market and chose the agencies whose projects we particularly liked. Then, after preparing a sketch of application functionality, we started preliminary talks and negotiations with selected agencies. Escola turned out to be a team that fully satisfied our needs.

Describe the project in detail.

Still at the stage of the last talks with the agencies, Escola showed the greatest commitment and professional approach to the task set. We decided to create an application for the android and iOS native version. After we sent the initial outline of functionality, we received the first screen previews, which we liked very much.

It was then that we saw for the first time how our application will look like. A series of meetings with Escola's programmers and the involvement of our company's IT department in the project resulted in creating a full action plan for both sides. We had to coordinate the activities so that both the application and our internal systems would work together. Both sides' involvement resulted in a smooth transition to the testing phase, during which we made many more changes.

At each stage we could not only count on the quick action of the team, but also on substantive support for the designed solutions or functionalities.

What was the team composition?

We felt that our project is supervised by a staff of people who know their work. The contact with the Project Manager went very smoothly. Every week we summed up the progress of work on a video call. The work was conducted simultaneously on both platforms (iOS and Android).

In the final phase of the project, additional programmers were involved, which allowed us to close the application development stage in a satisfactory time.

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

Finally, we can say that we are very satisfied with the decision to create an application for our clients. The assumed results exceeded our wildest expectations - the number of downloads exceeded our assumptions by several hundred percent. Very positive reviews show that customers were waiting for such a solution and we actually needed the application.

Despite hundreds of hours of testing, in which dozens of our employees were involved, there were of course minor problems that we had not anticipated before. At one point our servers were surprised by the number of users, to which we had to react efficiently. Despite the fact that almost a year has passed since the implementation of the application, we are in constant contact with Escola and I can safely say that there is practically no week in which we wouldn't make further, smaller or larger changes.

Additionally, Escola takes the initiative to share new functionalities that make our work much easier.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The flow of information between our company and Escola was very good. Every week we organized video calles and several times we met in person to discuss the most important issues concerning mainly the internal work on our side. Thanks to the appropriate, not too many people involved in the project on both sides, we were sure that at any time we know what stage of application development we are at.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Professionalism and ability to understand the client's needs - these are the key words with which Escola can be described. Even the most difficult tasks in our project were no problem. Each time, after presenting an outline of what we want to achieve, we received several proposals for solutions, sometimes enriched with additional proposals for action.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Nothing special that I could write about right now.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the managing director for Asplan Viak Internet. It’s a company focusing on mapping solutions for web and apps. We have about 20 employees.

What challenge were you trying to address with Qunabu Interactive: Escola S.A.?

We needed additional resources to do some mobile development.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They helped develop a mobile app related to a solution for marine waste. It was built for iOS and Android.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a team of roughly seven people. 

How did you come to work with Qunabu Interactive: Escola S.A.?

They were initially recommended to us. Prior to this project, we had worked with them on another project. 

How much have you invested with them?

We invested €130,000 (approximately $148,000).

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from August 2019 – May 2020.

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

We’re in the final testing period with a plan for our client to launch the product in July 2020. It looks good, and we are happy with the work they did. It was a complex project. We used Scrum methodology. 

How did Qunabu Interactive: Escola S.A. perform from a project management standpoint?

They did pretty well. They had an allocated coordinator/Scrum Master on their side. Our Scrum Master did daily follow-up meetings with them. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were engaged and committed to the project and the purpose of the client’s perspective. They didn’t just identify issues but were proactive in solving them. They also challenged us to consider why some of our ideas might not work. We would like to work with them again in the future.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Perhaps they could identify when some of their resources aren’t performing optimally. There was a need for additional resources, and it took some time to get them into place. They did identify and fix, the problem.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Engage them early in the planning of a project so they can bring their approach and best ideas into it.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm a day coordinator for a large NGO in Warsaw. My project is a map-based road repair system.

What challenge were you trying to address with Escola?

We needed a company to help us build a new website. Another company worked with us previously, but we wanted a new provider that was more helpful.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The site is well-incorporated with our company. Whenever I reach out to them, they're responsive, and they understand our budgetary constraints. Together, we created a progressive web application, which is quite popular on both iOS and Android. Everything they do supports the versions of our application.

In their first task, they completely changed our website and made it more mobile responsive. We use maps, so it was important to have a smoother mobile interface. The new site is completely different, and all our key functionality works perfectly on mobile devices.

What is the team composition?

Our main point of contact is available to answer all our questions, but I also speak occasionally with an IT specialist for quick troubleshooting. I don't interact with the whole team, which is probably about four people at the largest.

How did you come to work with Escola?

I joined the company two years ago, shortly after they signed a contract with us. I'm not sure what the hiring process was.

How much have you invested with them?

I estimate we've spent $15,000-$20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The agreement started in 2017 and is ongoing. We're about to renew the contract with them.

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

The impacts of the project are very visible. We collaborate with local governments in Poland, and the new website has attracted ten new clients. We had 18 clients last year, and now we have 28.

How did Escola perform from a project management standpoint?

They're very responsive. Whenever we have a problem, they repair issues quickly, and they're very helpful with all our needs. We're looking forward to signing a new deal with them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

NGOs can be difficult to work with, but they understand the specifics of our work. They're always available when we need them, and the new page looks wonderful.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We faced a couple of delays with the UX when we switched to the new website, but that's quite common. I like working with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I visited them at their office when we started working together. That helped us create a high level of cooperation. Meeting with them in person will give you a better impression of the individuals on their team and how they work.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Avista Consulting & Management. We primarily serve universities with EU-funded projects, helping them with restructuring and abroad-student recruitment.  

What challenge were you trying to address with Escola?

We hired Escola to provide IT development support on several of our projects with universities.  

What was the scope of their involvement?

Escola provides IT support for a range of projects for our clients. Whenever we receive work, we communicate with their team and delegate the assigned tasks amongst their project managers. They propose tailor-made ideas and make audits for several clients. Ultimately, their team helps improve IT infrastructures and find solutions for their technical issues.

What is the team composition?

Escola provides a team of resources for various projects.

How did you come to work with Escola?

When I worked at a private university, I’d heard of Escola and received proposals from them to develop our website. After needing IT support, I reached out to Escola and now use them for several of our clients.  

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve spent around $150,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

For this engagement, we first started working together in 2017 and the work is ongoing.  

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

Our clients are delighted with the work from Escola. We continually receive positive feedback on the work they produce. Important members of the universities we work with have been highly impressed with the creative ideas and strong solutions produced for them. Several of our clients have said they’d use Escola in the future, which is a great seal of approval for us.

How did Escola perform from a project management standpoint?

Their team is almost perfect in terms of planning, identifying risks, creating solutions, and implementing changes. From beginning to end, the work is handled properly and professionally. I’m able to communicate with their team whenever necessary. We primarily communicate through email, and they’re responsive. The work is delivered quickly and up to our standards.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They customize their approach for every project and propose creative solutions each time. Nothing they produce is off-the-shelf or unoriginal. They can identify the missing puzzle piece for every business and find a custom-made solution.  

Additionally, they’re very collaborative. I always have great discussions with their team about the market and any insight they give is great. I’m more knowledgeable about the industry and higher-education sector because of my engagement with them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It’d be helpful if they had 1–2 more teammates involved in the client management process. Instead of only the president meeting with clients, they’d be able to win more projects if more people were involved in the process. Other than this, I don’t have any ideas for improvement.  

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the CTO of Format, an online platform for creative professionals. Our customers can use templating technology to customize the design of their hosted websites.

For what projects/services did your company hire Qunabu Interactive?

We needed new options for template design, as well as maintenance and improvement for or large codebase of existing templates. We sought a partner to handle this work with a quick turnaround.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted the implementations to match the intent and visuals of the design provided by our in-house team. We also wanted a solution that would adhere to the best web practices.

How did you select this vendor?

We put out an RFP and considered 5-10 respondents before we decided on Qunabu. They offered the best combination of cost, expertise, availability, and process.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They onboarded onto our platform and our custom technology stack to provide on-demand development services. They understood our business logic and customer needs and developed new themes based on our designs, using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, as well as the Liquid templating language. Their iterations on QA cycles helped to find and resolve issues, and they also iterated on features and UX.

What was the team composition?

We worked with various frontend developers.

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

Qunabu’s support enabled us to scale up our offerings for template work according to demand.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

They were responsive in working with our in-house project management and product management. We maintained contact through Asana and Slack, and they worked with our in-house development toolset for building themes as they worked through a backlog of existing issues.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They’ve proven themselves to be trustworthy and reliable. They always work to meet their commitments.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, nothing comes to mind.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of Work-Life, an app that gives you more time when you work by providing things like cleaning services, car wash, and research. It’s like an assistant.

What challenge were you trying to address with Qunabu Interactive?

We wanted to build a platform that would enable us to perform tasks, and we needed to make it repeatable and scalable.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed our web application, with a responsive web design that can be used on every type of mobile device. They’re also developing our Android and iOS mobile app, which is a dynamic calendar. To input a service, the user simply clicks on the date and chooses from the services, then books it.

Qunabu built a system that divides our services into different providers. Every provider has their own profile, which they manage, while every service has a separate profile. We have an admin file, a service provider profile, a client profile, a coordinator, and an HR assistance. They also built a payment system.

What is the team composition?

Mateusz (Founder/CTO/CEO, Qunabu Interactive) is in charge of the tech and programming, doing all the technical details with his team. Monika (Co-Owner/Project Manager, Qunabu Interactive) takes control of the design and UX. It’s good to have two people with different skillsets. There are also graphic designers, navigation designers, testers, and programmers.

How did you come to work with Qunabu Interactive?

I researched a couple of companies, then a friend referred Qunabu to me.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from May 2017–August 2018. They’re still working on minor changes based on the results of the testing.

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

I like the way they built the whole system, as it’s very intuitive and easy to follow. Testing it wasn’t a problem and I could easily find what I was looking for. We can see their UX experience in the end product, which is an area we weren’t specialized in.

We’re now adding features or simplifying things based on feedback from users, who generally say it looks nice and it’s working. There are some minor issues we need to resolve to make it even better, but overall, most of the people are happy with how it looks and runs.

How did Qunabu Interactive perform from a project management standpoint?

The communication was really good, and we kept in touch on Slack, while also using Redmine and email. Any questions raised are quickly answered and issues are resolved very quickly. I was happy with their responsiveness; the project was done on time and as we planned.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They treat clients very personally, which differentiates them from others. They answer my calls and queries all the time and that’s something I really like; it makes me feel like an important client. Even though we’re not big, they treat us as worthy to acknowledge. I’m very pleased that we chose them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Think through and prepare as much material, mockups, designs, and functionality as you can because then it makes things easier for them. I wasn’t as well prepared as I thought at the beginning. When designing processes, it’s better to start later and be better prepared in order to save time.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a food delivery website in Poland that targets schools. I started the business over two years ago with the idea of providing hot and home-cooked meals to students because schools only offered sandwiches and other simple things.

With our solution, students have several restaurants to choose from, and they can order in advance. This is something new compared to the usual junk food found in their schools.

What challenge were you trying to address with Qunabu Interactive?

I wanted to work with someone that understood small businesses but also had experience with large ones. I was serious about my project, and wanted to give the work to people that could react in an hour’s time and willing to work on weekends.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Qunabu Interactive created everything; I only gave them an idea and some sketches for the website. The project took around two months to complete, and it included an entire system for placing orders and sending the information to the restaurants in PDF form. It’s quite a complicated process, and everything needed to be built from scratch.

The first phase was to create a responsive website, given that 90% of customers would be accessing it on mobile devices. Six months ago, I got a serious investor, so we began building a mobile app. We’re planning on updating things and adding new features with Qunabu Interactive.

What is the team composition?

They assigned three people for the initial development, one of whom was Mateusz (Founder, Qunabu Interactive). I believe there have been 4–5 people working for me in total, including designers and developers. I’m currently working with a full-time resource.

How did you come to work with Qunabu Interactive?

I wanted to give my work to an experienced team that could also provide maintenance services. A friend told me that Qunabu Interactive was working with large companies in Poland, so I decided to hire them.

How much have you invested with them?

The initial cost was $12,000–$13,000. I paid another $2,000 for a prepaid module for the app. We’ll be investing another $10,000 in the next two months.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with Qunabu in May 2016. The collaboration is ongoing.

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

We have around 5,000 customers and we’ve received around 18,000 orders in the last two years.

How did Qunabu Interactive perform from a project management standpoint?

My investor suggested switching our provider for website work, but I told him that even though Qunabu Interactive may give longer estimates than other companies, their delivery is fine. Other companies will promise to deliver in one or two weeks, but they never do. I prefer to work with someone who gives me realistic timelines. If Mateusz tells me that something will take two weeks, it will.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We had a crisis with our database about a year ago. Qunabu sorted it out and now everything works properly.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They should hire more people because there aren’t enough resources to handle tasks faster at times. When I told them that I needed the work done quicker, Mateusz assigned another person to our project. Overall, they do a good job and respond adequately to suggestions.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a public relations manager at Teatr Wybrzeze, the biggest theatre in northern Poland. I’m responsible for contacts with the media as well as managing websites and social media accounts.

What challenge were you trying to address with Qunabu Interactive?

We had a very heavy website that was made using Flash technology. While it was very beautiful, the company that built it didn’t tell us that it would be so rough to use. It took a whole minute to load and cause a lot of problems for users. We wanted to have a more user-friendly and equally beautiful website.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They redeveloped our site to make it user-friendly, and also created a mobile version of it. The most important thing in theatre is the news spectacles, so the website was based on photographs with information about spectacles. It’s a normal theatre site, but it’s very aesthetic, light, and fast. We continue to work together on updating the site as well as maintenance.

What is the team composition?

I work with their project manager and their CTO/CEO.

How did you come to work with Qunabu Interactive?

We were looking for an affordable and ethical vendor. We asked a few companies for their proposals, and Qunabu Interactive’s was the best. They had a great price and quality. Additionally, our situation was urgent, and they were able to address it fast.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $20,000 on their services so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2012 and the collaboration is ongoing.

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

We’re analyzing the website all the time, and we’ve received many more users. People aren’t complaining and they did in the past because it’s now fast and presents photos nicely. I’m very satisfied with the collaboration.

How did Qunabu Interactive perform from a project management standpoint?

We didn’t have any problems. They delivered and communicated quickly.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re professional and pleasant, so you don’t get the feeling like you’re talking with robots. Also, the relationship isn’t as strict and formal but rather feels like you’re working with friends.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. We’re really satisfied.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Do your research and look at their past projects to make sure you like their aesthetic. If it fits someone’s project, they should do it.