Process makes perfect

Trusted IT partners with over 200 founders and leaders from billion-dollar brands to innovative startups worldwide. The last dull day we had was a decade ago.

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Who are we?

Who is O2SOFT?

O2SOFT, a bespoke software development firm based in London, was founded in 2011. We had restricted capabilities at the time of the launch and could only create standalone mobile and web apps. Our procedures were poor, and we made several errors when breaking ground. We ate all of the costs until the projects were re-started, a series of strategic actions that earned our clients' trust.

We introduced strategic management processes into our organization in 2013 and pivoted our organization to develop integrated, business-first solutions that were a byproduct of mobile and web technologies coming together and working seamlessly to provide a lavish experience, learning quickly from our mistakes. While our solutions looked and felt nice, the customized functionality they provided to the client organization allowed the client to place a high level of reliance on the solutions, as well as on us as an IT partner.

At O2SOFT, we believe in doing things correctly the first time. Over 200 real-world business issues have been solved, and hundreds of creative ideas have been realised, thanks to our collaboration with executives and founders from billion-dollar corporations to inventive startups. Our solutions are designed to handle and age well, are optimised for end-user interaction, and may be used in conjunction with or in addition to the current IT environment. We continue to service clientele with whom we originally worked years ago, among others.

What services does O2SOFT provide?

Strategy - helping you figure out "what exactly should I build?"

Design - the process of creating aesthetically appealing, simple-to-use interfaces that delight your customers and make your company seem good.

Development - the process of developing and testing code that works smoothly, gets the job done, and is dependable on a daily basis.

Quality assurance (QA) is the process of ensuring that we always produce the correct item and that it works properly across many platforms.

Deployment and DevOps – delivering your product as fast as possible to your consumers.

Hosting and monitoring – ensuring that everything works properly and safely once it's deployed.

Ongoing Support – With your own dedicated, fractional product crew, keep your product in top shape and respond quickly to your requests.

Your strengths and weaknesses?

We aggressively seek out the finest solution and manage projects from start to finish. Our company's reputation has been built on timely delivery and precise solutions.

The following kind of partnerships or relationships fit us best:

New development - "from idea to MVP" or "from MVP to version 1" o Dedicated software team - a section of a software department o Takeover and improvements of legacy software

Boosting existing teams – Adding common values to present teams o Turnarounds or project rescues

Build-to-spec

Provide remote bodies to organizations in order for them to fill seats

We do not engage in the following activities:

Assign our staff to work with our clients on-site.

Contract-to-hire engagements — this, too, should be handled through a staffing agency.

Our composition and constitution

Team size?

We are a group of 40 highly competent professionals who have all gone through a rigorous selection procedure to join their colleagues at O2SOFT.

Are you able to provide Continuing Professional Development?

For the time they spend learning and contributing, all of our workers get rewarded. Reading relevant literature, attending industry conferences, and participating in and presenting at local meetings are all part of this process.

We have frequent lunch & learn events in the office so that our workers may learn from one another. We also cover the cost of any Scrum, project management, engineering principles and practices, great design, or business strategy training programs that an employee may take at any time.

Hours typically worked per week?

Our employees typically charge between 35 and 40 hours per week.

Where are your offices?

Our registered offices are in London and Lahore, respectively. In Pakistan, India, and Singapore, we also operate support centers.

What is your hiring process?

There are three phases to our screening process:

Technical Phone Interview

Phone Interview with the most relevant individual

Coding Test - This eliminates about 80% of all candidates.

References in-person interview

When we hire developers, we look for people who:

would programme even if it weren't their job,

can quickly acquire and apply new, even alien, concepts under pressure, and

have a strong grasp of computer science fundamentals.

Of course, different people have different hobbies. Each individual develops their unique "T-shaped" competence in one subject over time (ex: security or front-end or SQL optimization). As a result, our whole team is fluent in a variety of languages, technology stacks, and specialties.

Can you provide resumes for my project?

Unless it's for an official security clearance, we don't do this. When we ask for resumes from team members, it's a dead giveaway that our potential customer prefers a staffing arrangement. This is something we want to avoid, as previously stated. You may rest assured that you will interact with a variety of team members before we start working on your project. We're probably not a good fit for you if you're not excited about your team before we start working together.

Our Sales Process

Purpose of the first call?

To make sure we're a good fit, we always start with a phone call. We seek for a fair budget, a clear vision and direction, and total devotion to the project.

Do we have any references?

Absolutely. In our opinion, checking references is an important part of the buying process. We'll usually give references when we've decided that we're a good fit for you and your project.

Will you sign our NDA?

We will not sign an NDA before our first call. We must have a thorough understanding of the industry in order to assess whether there is a possible conflict with current or past clients. Every year, we talk with approximately 500 potential new clients. It is inescapable that we will have similar ideas.

Only if the following criteria are satisfied will we sign an NDA:

It is reciprocal or bilateral in nature (we typically use ours)

We understand the project's requirements and believe that the project and customer are a good fit for O2SOFT.

We are not in violation of any other commercial agreements.

Will we participate in an RFP?

In a nutshell, it's not likely. We've written a full blog article about why, but here's a brief summary:

RFP requirements are usually quite specific, yet they are frequently devoid of any business context.

There is a tiny probability that this document will have the best feature set. We place our confidence in someone else's ability to correctly capture the criteria when we agree to respond to an RFP. By doing user interviews, mockups, prototyping, releasing actual software, and collecting feedback from real users, the project team may learn more about the proper features. This contract model sets the customer and consultant against each other from the outset.

Are you comfortable with fixed-bids?

As you may have guessed, we don't accept fixed-bid offers. We politely decline RFPs and utilize the opportunity to educate the potential customer on why RFPs aren't a good fit for custom software projects.

Can O2SOFT take over an existing project?

Absolutely. We always start with a live system presentation, followed by a code audit. When we conclude the audit, we provide you a detailed report that includes an analysis, recommendations, and a takeover proposal (if applicable).

What are your privacy and IP policies?

Who owns O2SOFT's code and designs developed throughout the project? You certainly do. Before we start working, we'll draw up a services agreement that provides you ownership of all work products and deliverables as long as we're paid for the services we offer.

Not ready for development yet. Help?

When customers come to us, they are almost never ready for development. It's critical that we spend the time up front to assist you figure out what you should create and how much money you should set aside for your project. Find out more about our pre-project consultation service.

What are the steps involved in the creation of Custom Software?

If you require new software, we'll use our pre-project consulting technique to help you measure up your project before moving forward with a Discovery, Design, and Planning engagement. We'll begin working on your software after DDP. From beginning to end, you'll be a part of the process.

Here's where you can learn more about our procedure.

Are you taking on new projects? What’s the timeline to get started?

Yes, we are always evaluating new projects. It takes around two weeks to complete the pre-project consulting procedure. The Discovery, Design, and Planning phases take 4-6 weeks to complete. Then comes the development phase.

Project Approach

What’s the usual team size?

Typically, each project team comprises of two to three developers. Each project team is assisted by UI/UX designers, software testers, managers, and cloud engineers. Because each development team shares support resources, we can decrease project costs for clients. We may also increase developer productivity by ensuring that they spend their time working on production-level code rather than doing other things.

What are the usual roles on the team?

Each team has a Project Lead, a full-time developer who is in charge of facilitating communication and planning with the client and among team members.

How does O2SOFT communicate?

Interactions with the Project Lead aren't the only way for project teams and customers to communicate. Every employee at O2SOFT has the power to communicate with our clients. During the work week, O2SOFT staff and their clients often exchange phone calls and emails.

Each project team at O2SOFT has its own email address (for instance, clientname@frogslayer.com). All formal communication strategies that will be utilized during the project are listed below:

Weekly Status Update

Outline the following: what was accomplished last week, what will be accomplished this week, any queries or concerns, and the project's current state.

Weekly Call

This should be a weekly call that is established at the beginning of the season. The aim is to check in and talk about any issues, get answers to questions, follow up on action items, or get feedback.

Release Notice

The Team Lead or PM will send an email to the customer outlining what has transpired since the last build and what is available for testing and feedback.

How do you manage projects at O2SOFT?

Lack of communication is one of the most prevalent causes of project failure. Establishing communication and planning routines is the most important aspect of software project management. Here are a few examples of rhythms:

A weekly meeting of one hour to review achievements, failures, and future goals

Team members demonstrate what they accomplished the previous week.

Everyone discusses how the project's processes/techniques may be improved.

A weekly timetable has been established.

A 15-minute daily standup is required to maintain team momentum.

Our project management processes are built on the principle of "no surprises," which guarantees that everyone is kept informed at all times and that risks are addressed as they occur.

Who will I communicate with in the team?

In a nutshell, the Project Lead. Our team's Project Leads have the power to contact with customers directly. This keeps things moving and keeps our flat organizational structure intact.

What are my responsibilities for the project? What’s my role?

Clients are expected to take an active role in the projects they are working on. You are the one who brings your industry and market knowledge to the table. Without it, we have no way of knowing if we're making the right product. The engagement includes weekly calls or meetings, as well as phone availability during normal business hours.

How will my feedback be received?

At every level of the process, client involvement is crucial. You should always provide input, even if the features are still in beta. Your comments will help us understand what's essential to you and your business. This enables us to prioritise and remain focused on your needs.

Can I adjust my plans/features on the go?

Yes. This sort of flexibility is essential and may determine a project's success, but large changes after the kick-off may have a negative influence on the budget or timetable.

Can I regularly see what you’re doing if I wanted to?

Yes. Successful software projects, we believe, are founded on open, transparent communication. You'll always know what's going on with your project, and you'll have constant communication with your team. Every week, our Project Leads call their customers numerous times. We provide weekly development updates and regular releases on a staging site to keep you updated.

What happens when the project is complete?

Rarely is software finished. We are certain that our customers and their users will come up with new and unique ideas during the process and beyond the initial delivery. As your business evolves, your software will need to evolve and adapt as well.

To enhance user acceptability, it's common to take a pause from introducing new features after the initial release and focus on upgrading or correcting current ones.

What’s your QA process?

QA specialists are involved from the beginning, and test techniques are developed early on in projects. Testing takes place at every stage of the project, not only at the end. Code reviews and pair programming are also used to ensure that only high-quality code is written.

How do you write code?

O2SOFT teams benefit greatly from open source tools, libraries, frameworks, and even whole projects, as well as our own proprietary libraries. We never reinvent the wheel when there is a technology available to solve a problem. From the beginning, we always program the components that make your product distinctive and useful.

Cost & Timeline

What are your usual engagements?

Here are some samples of typical projects we've worked on:

Code Audit – 2 individuals, 1 to 2 weeks

Discovery, Design & Planning engagement – 3 people, 4 to 16 weeks

Monthly retainer for a dedicated team

Fill a void while an internal team is put together - two individuals, three months

3 persons, 6 months of staff augmentation with current internal team On many occasions, we've completed projects for clients who could only afford "Version 1." They spend some time getting to know the software before returning for a second round of design and development with a clearer idea of where the product needs to go.

How much will my project cost?

We won't be able to adequately answer this question unless we first have a thorough understanding of your concept, business, market, users, and so on. While we can't give you an exact estimate for your project, we can tell you what's average for the projects we're most suited to help you with, based on the 200+ projects we've completed since 2012.

While it's impossible to estimate a project's precise costs without going through a research process like our Discovery, Design, and Planning phase, we can help you set a fair budget before you hire us.

It's also important to keep in mind that most projects are broken down into phases. Throughout the initial development phase, our goal is to keep a laser-like focus on the most important features and create something that will set us up for future phases.

We always aim for the value we give to our clients to much surpass the expenses we charge, regardless of how big or little their budget is.

How long does a typical software project take?

A typical small team for the projects we work on consists of two to three full-time developers. A large team is made up of four to six people.

To obtain an idea of how long the project will take, divide the above values by 32 hours for each team member. For a team of three people, a 1200 hour project needs roughly 3 months of calendar time (1200 hours / (3 persons * 32 hours/person/week) / 4 weeks/month = 3 months).

We can increase staff and move more quickly on large projects. That is very remarkable, and it is not something that every team or organization can achieve. The addition of new people to the team demands the availability of more people.

Who pays for bugs?

Keep in mind that when you pay for bespoke software, you're paying a team to develop and build the initial version of a product. In bespoke software projects, dangers include developing the right product, finance and scheduling risks, third-party integrations, and demonstrating technical strategies.

Keep in mind that you're paying your staff to help you manage these risks, not to own them financially. Each sprint or release does not promise a fully functional, bug-free product, but you may always see them and work with us to address them in the following sprint, along with backlog items.

We do, however, have standards and best practices in place to encourage each team to do all possible to provide a high-quality product the first time.

What are your payment terms?

When billing by the hour, we invoice once a month in arrears. For example, you will receive an invoice on February 1st for the hours recorded from January 1st to January 31st. In ten days, the money is due.

When purchasing for a dedicated team, you must pay for the entire month's team in advance. You will, for example, pay for the whole month of February on February 1st.

Does O2SOFT offer any guarantees?

The price is guaranteed. In a sector known for cost overruns and low-ball bids, we go to considerable lengths to de-risk projects up front. This effort provides precise responses, accurate estimates, and effective connections. If we make a mistake, we will be responsible for the entire additional cost until we get back on schedule. Why? Because doing so is the right thing to do.

We also guarantee that you will have the option to cancel at any time. We ensure that we are held accountable at every stage of the process by putting the power of termination in the hands of our clients.

Project Management

What is your success rate? How do you de-risk projects?

We have a 96.5 percent success rate in an industry where 42 percent is the norm. Communication, frequent and tight feedback loops, and keeping lean have all contributed to our high degree of success and reputation for giving quick and precise responses.

Have you ever failed on a project?

Yes, we've had some failed projects in the past. Every failure may be traced back to a lack of communication, which might include:

a lack of understanding of the project's scope;

a mismatch between what was generated and what was expected; and

a lack of client and team contact throughout the project.

In the event of a failure, we ate the entire project's cost until it was resurrected. We know we made the correct choice.

Following our setbacks, we improved our processes and training.

Development of our very effective Discovery, Design, and Planning phase

Multi-point estimate methods with an emphasis on risk

A more complete 60-day onboarding approach for all new recruits

Scrum training is mandatory for all new hires

What languages and tech do you work with?

O2SOFT's skill set is varied, allowing us to examine options and select the best languages, platforms, and tools for each assignment. We utilize these for around 80% of our work:

Angular.js, React.js, Vue.js, Node.js, Node.js, Python (Django, Flask), ASP.NET Core (C#), PHP, RoR

Swift and Kotlin for iOS and Android

Cross-Platform — Flutter, React Native (JavaScript) (Dart)

Embedded – C, C++, JavaScript

Database – PostgreSQL, SQL Server, MySQL, MongoDB

Desktop – Java, Microsoft WPF (C#)

Do you write iPhone and Android apps?

We do, in fact. We frequently use React Native or Flutter to target both platforms with the same core code, assuming your project does not require sophisticated polling or data processing. This cuts down on development time and costs substantially.

What industries have you worked with till date?

Sports

HealthCare

Online Retail

Distribution

Travel

Education

Hospitality

Real Estate

Are you able to share past projects?

A list of some of our most recent clients may be seen on our website. Unfortunately, owing to confidentiality considerations, we won't be able to discuss project details until we've established a good fit and signed a mutual NDA. We will present you with a portfolio of work as well as a full list of references at that time.

Are you hands-on with developing APIs?

Yes, all of our apps include an API layer.

Are you comfortable with working under HIPAA and PCI compliance protocols?

Yes, we've managed HIPAA compliance on a number of large-scale healthcare projects, and PCI compliance is something we deal with on a daily basis because credit card data is processed, transferred, or stored in 80 percent of our projects.

Upon request, we may provide our complete security and compliance package, which covers our policies and processes for data processing, security, and other safeguards. This includes all of the rules that apply to our hosting packages.

Hosting & Monitoring

Are you experienced with cloud hosting?

Yes. We have a private cloud that we utilise to host and administer our clients' apps, which is hosted and managed by AWS and Azure. Thousands of people rely on the goods we host and support on a regular basis. As a consequence, in our production situations, uptime has never been an issue.

What is the hosting package composed of?

A container for a variety of services, including transactional email, notice, and batch reporting, among others.

Sandboxed development, testing, and staging environments

The operating system is updated on a regular basis.

Nightly backups of the web server and databases are performed.

Bots and attacks are always being monitored.

Methods of recovery that are standardized, as well as performance monitoring

Do you have security standards and policies?

Yes. Upon request, we may provide our complete security and compliance package, which covers our policies and processes for data processing, security, and other safeguards. This includes all of the rules that apply to our hosting packages.

How secure is your infrastructure?

While no one can ever be totally protected, we take pride in the fact that none of our clients has ever been attacked, and our network has never been breached.

Tell me about your approach to disaster recovery?

We've never had to deal with an emergency recovery situation, but we do backups every night to aid with quick recovery. In some cases, we back up data every several hours. Our recovery response time is less than 24 hours.

Dude, where’s my call?

If you’re here, you’ve got a problem. Trust us, it won’t solve itself. Give us a holler and let’s figure it out together.