SynapseIndia @ VenturePact

FoodCloud app and website

Client - FoodCloud app and website - Delhi, India

FoodCloud app connects foodies with home chefs and caterers in Delhi-NCR. It
is the best place for you to find and order delicious home-cooked food made
with love! On our platform, you can choose from a variety of cuisines and
menus and have many mouthwatering treats delivered to your doorstep!

Start Date: -

Project Cost: -

Duration: -

All Skills

Java objective C PHP CakePHP Laravel json iPhone iOS Android 4 More

EO Network

Client - EO Network -

The EO GLOBAL application is developed for usage by global network of more than 8,000+ business owners in 40 countries. The EO GLOBAL application entails listing of over 121 chapters (cities across the world) and showing the events if any, inside the chapters (cities). The application shows details ..... (read more)

Start Date: -

Project Cost: -

Duration: -

All Skills Domain Industry

objective C Java iOS Android iPhone iPad Sharepoint .NET Web Application Mobile Application Others 6 More

Mortimer James

Client - Mortimer James - Minneapolis, United States

The client is an e-learning startup developing a custom education management platform. Limited technical capabilities in-house required that the client find a partner to support the custom design of their WordPress site. SynapseIndia was screened carefully and then contracted to supply a dedicated t ..... (read more)

Start Date: -

Project Cost: -

Duration: -

All Skills Domain Industry

JavaScript PHP Wordpress MySql HTML5 Web Application E-Learning 2 More

Kapil Gupta

Self Reported

Communication:

Technical skill:

Adherence to timeliness:

Design Thinking:

What did the service provider do well?

The client remains very pleased with the work completed by SynapseIndia. According to the client, SynapseIndia has become instrumental to the successful completion of their most challenging technical projects, including custom development, user testing, quality assurance, and bug resolution. SynapseIndia received considerable praise for their uncompromising responsiveness and their exceptional project management skills. The client maintains an ongoing relationship with SynapseIndia and recommends them highly.

Where could the service provider improve?

They work on daytime hours in India. That was my preference at the beginning. There are many people who will work overnight for them so that they're available during daytime in the United States. I've had good experiences with that, but I've come to see that, working that schedule night after night messes with your body. I preferred that they would work during the day. However, since I also use them to support the learning management system, such as if someone would send me a ticket here during the day, I would like to know that there's someone awake there to handle it if there's something I'm not able to troubleshoot locally. We haven't crossed that bridge yet, though, so I'm not certain they offer 24-hour support.

How did they handle problems and issues that came up during development?

One of the reasons I liked them from the start, and I continue to like them, is that they work really hard to make sure that communication is not an issue. If anything, they overcommunicate. Ultimately, I like that. I would rather know ahead of time, than trying to pull it out of them, if something is delayed, or isn't going as planned. There's daily communication, including updates. They will initiate either a phone call or a Skype IM session if there's something they're not sure about. For the most part, we prevent any problems or rework by making sure everyone's clear about what the plan is upfront. I'm very happy about the way in which they manage their projects.

What did the service provider build or do for you? What was your project?

We've had a WordPress site for about a year. We wanted a new theme. We were using WordPress and other software for learning management, and we were getting a little tired of most learning management systems not having any CMS [content management system] capabilities, specifically being able to create a site for learners, before they even logged in – basically, a home page with marketing elements. Then, they would be shown the learning management part. We designed a concept for creating a learning management system in WordPress, and we hired them to do the development work – creating the actual theme, and a couple of plug-ins.

Online Medical Information Resource

Client - Online Medical Information Resource -

The client is an online, interactive resource offering detailed information for patients considering or undergoing knee replacement surgery. Limited internal expertise required that the client find a partner to design and develop their online platform. SynapseIndia was contracted by the client to as ..... (read more)

Start Date: -

Project Cost: -

Duration: -

All Skills Domain Industry

PHP Laravel MySql jQuery HTML5 LAMP Web Application Mobile Application Education & Research Healthcare 5 More

Kapil Gupta

Self Reported

Communication:

Technical skill:

Adherence to timeliness:

Design Thinking:

What did the service provider do well?

The client expressed great satisfaction with the work completed by SynapseIndia. According to the client, their successfully launched website has received considerable praise from end-users regarding its intuitive usability and interactive multimedia components. Synapse India was praised highly for their approach to project management and their meticulous attention to detail when providing process documentation. The client maintains an ongoing relationship with Synapse India and recommends them to others without reservation.

Where could the service provider improve?

There's always room for improvement. The only thing I can say is I'd love it to be a 100 percent perfect each time, but it's not. That's just the reality of life. If they could improve anything, it would just be always getting it done correctly the first time, but that's not a very significant criticism because they don't have a lot of issues with the coding. Sometimes, they don't get exactly what I'm looking for but, compared to my experience with the last developer, it's much better. It's not a harsh criticism.

How did they handle problems and issues that came up during development?

They'll communicate with me through Skype when they want to talk more directly about certain issues. The thing that I like very much is that every day, They give you a report about what they did all day. They give you screenshots, links, or whatever to show you what they did, and you can give immediate feedback to them. Every time you send them a response, like, "Hey, this is the thing that I see that you did, and we have to make this change or that change" the very first thing in their morning, they will send you a response telling you that they got it. Then, by the end of their day, they'll send you another message outlining each individual point in your specific response that they've gone over, they've fixed, or they're still pending a fix on. To me, that is very helpful. Then, like I said, sometimes they'll Skype with me if they want to talk a little bit more. We've done some other things like screen sharing, but that's not very common. We haven't found that we needed it a lot. I have two project managers: one on the infrastructure side and one on the design side. The actually work is then divvied up to various people, but the work product that comes out is pretty consistent. Having one person as a point of contact, and running the whole show really works for me. I think it's the best way to do it.

What did the service provider build or do for you? What was your project?

We're an online support and education resource and network for patients who are going through knee replacement surgery. I'm an orthopedic surgeon, and I designed a website and an iPhone app, heavy into social media, to manage those resources. Initially, their scope was very limited, because I didn't know them, and I didn't have specific referrals other than feedback that I got from Elance. I decided to assign them a couple of small projects that I knew I could have control over, and they didn't need a huge amount of access to my core resources, in order to see how they worked. I wanted to get a better experience with an IT [information technology] group than what I had last time. They pretty much delivered exactly as expected, and I continued to grow my level of comfort to the point where they are exclusively managing all of my IT needs for the company. As I saw their work, it didn't really stop, because it turned out there were a lot of things I needed to get done. There were a lot of things that I needed to have fixed in the infrastructure side of the website. I haven't really had them do any work on the iPhone app, but on the website. As I continued to have them do more infrastructure work, it somewhat snowballed into more work that I wanted to get done. It started out as maintenance work that I really needed, and there were some core things that I needed to have fixed, that the original development team just didn't code correctly, and it created persistent issues. They were doing a lot of bug fixes. One of the major projects that I did with them, after they had worked a lot on the website, was to redesign the website specifically to become fully responsive. They didn't do necessarily very much change in the design, but they took the entire website, which is kind of complicated and made the entire thing responsive.

Digital Grocer

Client - Digital Grocer - Los Angeles, United States

The client is a consumer startup that operates an online grocery marketplace for local vendors. Limited technical capabilities and a poor experience with a previous vendor convinced the client to find a new partner able to support the ongoing development of their Magento-based marketplace. SynapseIn ..... (read more)

Start Date: -

Project Cost: -

Duration: -

All Skills Domain

JavaScript Ajax PHP Magento HTML5 API Integration/Development Web Application 2 More

Kapil Gupta

Self Reported

Communication:

Technical skill:

Adherence to timeliness:

Design Thinking:

What did the service provider do well?

The client remains very pleased with the work completed by SynapseIndia. According to the client, SynapseIndia is now essential to the incremental improvement of their Magento site. The client also indicated that they have received overwhelmingly positive feedback from their vendor partners, all of whom remain impressed with the new features available to them and few reported defects. The client maintains an ongoing relationship with SynapseIndia and recommends them highly.

Where could the service provider improve?

As great as their communication is, there occasionally will be an issue because they are in India. They should get some more native English speakers even though they generally speak the language. The project manager's English is fantastic. When it comes to speaking with some of the programmers, though, things will get lost in translation. That's not really their fault.

How did they handle problems and issues that came up during development?

They've mostly delivered on budget. The few exceptions have not been their fault. The scope of the original project was not done correctly. They've been really good at setting up times that are convenient for both of us, so we could have real-world communication. We talk through Skype every morning.

What did the service provider build or do for you? What was your project?

We used Magento primarily. We've also found a few different bolt ons, so to speak, for vendor logging in and the portal part. Then, it was rebuilt from the ground up for our purposes. There are too many modules to mention that were used in our platform. One of the bigger things we had them do is to create custom shipping modules. Also, a custom login portion that allows us to manage not only products, but vendors and customers at the same time. They've done some extensive work on the shipping module. I don't think anyone else had what we were looking to do. They've created and remodified geolocation modules for us. They've reworked some of the standard Stamps.com, FedEx, and UPS modules in order to work within our paradigm. They did work on our online credit card processing, and created a revenue calculator in the back-end for our vendors. They've also done some extensive SEO [search engine optimization] and Google work for us. They weren't the first developers we've used, but they've been with us for 18 months so far. Individual developers come and go, based on our individual projects. We run one or two projects at a time and, based on the need, I will pick out what the next thing to work on will be. We've only done a soft launch so far. Most of our activity so far has been building up our vendor base. We need products to sell. While we've done that, we've been live testing. We've done some marketing, but we soon realized that we needed to work more on the kinks in the back-end and in getting vendors. Right now, we're implementing a different type of Apache Server, which is faster and more tailored toward Magento. Within that project, we've had multiple people work with us. Generally, we have one project person and, depending on our needs, we'll hire through them. At this launch, there were probably six developers we worked with. They've been a one-stop shop for us. We work directly with the developers or directly through their project manager, depending on the technical knowledge level at our end.

Startup Buffet

Client - Startup Buffet - New York, USA

The client is a media startup that provides a wide range of essential tools and services specific for small and midsize businesses [SMBs] ranging from accounting to marketing help. Limited technical expertise required that the client find a partner to support the backend development of their website ..... (read more)

Start Date: -

Project Cost: $30,000

Duration: -

All Skills Domain

JavaScript Ajax PHP API Databases MySql HTML5 API Integration/Development Dynamic Web App Web Application 5 More

Kapil Gupta

Self Reported

Communication:

Technical skill:

Adherence to timeliness:

Design Thinking:

What did the service provider do well?

The client remains very satisfied with the functionality and performance of the site developed by SynapseIndia. It was noted by the client that SynapseIndia has very capable engineers, but recommended that Synapse should invest more heavily in their user experience/user interface [UX/UI] capabilities. The client maintains an ongoing relationship with SynapseIndia and recommends them to others.

Where could the service provider improve?

Not that I don't think highly of them, but they don't really work on a project. They maintain the relationship at asking if everything is okay. When it comes to design, they're not really what you're looking for. They do not have the right resources for creative work. If you're looking for good, organized, engineering work, they should be able to support your need. I ended up firing the designer assigned to us because the work was very lousy and unorganized. I didn't think they knew what they were doing. In the first six months, I was not able to go to the backend and look at the code. I could look to the CSS, but had no access for making corrections myself. I would give them a design and it would come out totally different. The current designer is more organized and generally better. I wish I'd had him from the start. The problem is that it's very difficult to go back and fix things. It's very time-consuming. This is my one bad experience with them. Again, in terms of engineering, they're very good and efficient. My recommendation for future clients is to treat Synapse as a production shop for more technical work, and to steer away from using them as a creative or strategic partner. If you're just looking for something very ordinary, it would be okay. Our business concept has been done before, but it's still different from anything out there. This became a challenge. I'm the designer myself, and I have very high standards in terms of what I'm looking for. Something being two pixels off from what I wanted is a problem. If you have very high standards, you should have an in-house designer to work with them.

How did they handle problems and issues that came up during development?

They did a great job in terms of cost effectiveness and delivery. You will always have technical difficulties. Because we are in a very resource-controlled environment at this point, we do our best with what we have. I do all illustrations myself, and the engineers make up 60-70% of the project. Communication with them is generally very good.

What did the service provider build or do for you? What was your project?

The website was built from scratch. Technology-wise, it was pretty basic. It's Linux-based, developed using PHP and I chose my own hosting. In terms of architecture, they pretty much came up with all the ideas. They worked on a lot of the application program interface [API]. I had one developer assigned for my project. Aside from him, there was an overall project manager, one designer for HTML structuring, and one engineer. I chose Amazon Web Services [AWS] for hosting, and that required high technical skill for installation. AWS has a lot of different elements and components, which were beyond my knowledge. They have a small team specialized on that.

Jewelry Tool Manufacturer

Client - Jewelry Tool Manufacturer - New York, United States

The client is a family owned business that manufacturers tools and specialized instrumentation for jewelers and jewelry retailers. Limited internal capabilities required that the client find a suitable partner to support the development of their e-commerce retail site. SynapseIndia was carefully scr ..... (read more)

Start Date: -

Project Cost: -

Duration: -

All Skills Domain Industry

JavaScript PHP Laravel MySql HTML5 API Integration/Development Web Application E-commerce and Point of Sale 3 More

Kapil Gupta

Self Reported

Communication:

Technical skill:

Adherence to timeliness:

Design Thinking:

What did the service provider do well?

The client is very satisfied with their successfully developed e-commerce retail site. According to the client, their new website offers a wide variety of new features previously unavailable to users, which has resulted in fewer abandoned shopping carts. SynapseIndia was praised especially for their responsiveness and flexibility. The client maintains an ongoing relationship with SynapseIndia and recommends them highly.

Where could the service provider improve?

I would just say the only thing that was a little frustrating was getting the site to our specs. We held them to a really high standard and, in the end, they were able to do it. We wanted every pixel on that site to be as we had it in our PSDs. For the most part, they were able to do that. There was a lot of back and forth on the front end sometimes, and it got a little frustrating. In the end, it turned out fine.

How did they handle problems and issues that came up during development?

As far as budget, they were very affordable. I was happy with the cost. We did it on an hourly basis, and that seemed to work out well. As far as scheduling, there were no hard deadlines for this one. It took longer than I expected, but I don't think it was really their fault. I know from doing other projects that these things tend to drag on, so I'm not going to get on them for that. SynapseIndia was very responsive throughout the process and always gave me a heads up when things weren't going to be delivered exactly on time. Plus, they always included an explanation. It wasn't like, "Hey, this is going to be late." They gave us constant updates.

What did the service provider build or do for you? What was your project?

The client is a family owned business that manufacturers tools and specialized instrumentation for jewelers and jewelry retailers. Limited internal capabilities required that the client find a suitable partner to support the development of their e-commerce retail site. SynapseIndia was carefully screened before being contracted to supply a small team of developers with proven Magento expertise. We previously worked with another company, who had built out the wholesale site for us on Magento, and then our retail sites were all on Network Solutions. We wanted to migrate them to Magento, so I hired Synapse to build out the retail sites onto our existing instance of Magento. They also built another whole site off the wholesale one.

Asus Medical Corp

Client - Asus Medical Corp - Canaan, Canada

The client is a health care and medical billing firm that helps physicians process patient treatment transactions more easily and efficiently. Limited internal capabilities coupled with an aggressive project timeline required that the client find a partner to support the custom redevelopment of thei ..... (read more)

Start Date: -

Project Cost: -

Duration: -

All Skills Domain Industry

JavaScript PHP Laravel MySql HTML5 Web Application Healthcare 2 More

Kapil Gupta

Self Reported

Communication:

Technical skill:

Adherence to timeliness:

Design Thinking:

What did the service provider do well?

The client conveyed sincere appreciation for the work completed by SynapseIndia. According to the client, they have received overwhelmingly positive feedback from their external end-users and rarely discover user-facing defects. SynapseIndia was praised for their impeccable communication skills and their ability to adhere to strict project requirements. The client maintains an ongoing relationship with SynapseIndia and recommends them highly.

Where could the service provider improve?

I don't think so, the reason being is that it's not complex work. Some of the requirements are complicated, but they are such a small team, I don't think there's much that can be improved on. The only other area we're going to be delving into is, we're going to have them help set up our production cloud environment as well. The only thing I'm going to keep in mind is how coordinated are they between their development and infrastructure people. I haven't seen much in that regard yet, so there's not much to comment on.

How did they handle problems and issues that came up during development?

I've had offshore experiences before, so instead of giving them a lump sum of requirements, I've given them a roadmap with the specific development items that we would have in mind. Then, I specify further as we would get closer to each milestone, and give it to them. I actually have a daily call with them in order to clarify the requirements and answer questions, and that's gone extremely well. I tend to participate and do the user-acceptance testing of what they've completed for me, so I'm pretty intimately involved with what they're doing. In that respect, they don't need a project manager, that's pretty well done by me. I haven't used any project management tools, except for tracking on a spreadsheet. It's not complicated enough to need Microsoft Project or anything like that.

What did the service provider build or do for you? What was your project?

The client is a health care and medical billing firm that helps physicians process patient treatment transactions more easily and efficiently. Limited internal capabilities coupled with an aggressive project timeline required that the client find a partner to support the custom redevelopment of their medical billing solution. SynapseIndia was selected carefully to supply a small team of developers with MySQL and PHP development expertise.

Consumer Products Firm

Client - Consumer Products Firm - Minnesota City, United States

The client is a consumer products startup preparing to launch a brand new e-commerce website. Minimal in-house technical expertise and an inability to find affordable, local developers forced the client to consider hiring an offshore partner to support the development of their new website. SynapseIn ..... (read more)

Start Date: -

Project Cost: -

They'll communicate with me through Skype when they want to talk more directly about certain issues. The thing that I like very much is that every day, They give you a report about what they did all day. They give you screenshots, links, or whatever to show you what they did, and you can give immediate feedback to them. Every time you send them a response, like, "Hey, this is the thing that I see that you did, and we have to make this change or that change" the very first thing in their morning, they will send you a response telling you that they got it. Then, by the end of their day, they'll send you another message outlining each individual point in your specific response that they've gone over, they've fixed, or they're still pending a fix on. To me, that is very helpful. Then, like I said, sometimes they'll Skype with me if they want to talk a little bit more. We've done some other things like screen sharing, but that's not very common. We haven't found that we needed it a lot. I have two project managers: one on the infrastructure side and one on the design side. The actually work is then divvied up to various people, but the work product that comes out is pretty consistent. Having one person as a point of contact, and running the whole show really works for me. I think it's the best way to do it.

What did the service provider build or do for you? What was your project?

We're an online support and education resource and network for patients who are going through knee replacement surgery. I'm an orthopedic surgeon, and I designed a website and an iPhone app, heavy into social media, to manage those resources. Initially, their scope was very limited, because I didn't know them, and I didn't have specific referrals other than feedback that I got from Elance. I decided to assign them a couple of small projects that I knew I could have control over, and they didn't need a huge amount of access to my core resources, in order to see how they worked. I wanted to get a better experience with an IT [information technology] group than what I had last time. They pretty much delivered exactly as expected, and I continued to grow my level of comfort to the point where they are exclusively managing all of my IT needs for the company. As I saw their work, it didn't really stop, because it turned out there were a lot of things I needed to get done. There were a lot of things that I needed to have fixed in the infrastructure side of the website. I haven't really had them do any work on the iPhone app, but on the website. As I continued to have them do more infrastructure work, it somewhat snowballed into more work that I wanted to get done. It started out as maintenance work that I really needed, and there were some core things that I needed to have fixed, that the original development team just didn't code correctly, and it created persistent issues. They were doing a lot of bug fixes. One of the major projects that I did with them, after they had worked a lot on the website, was to redesign the website specifically to become fully responsive. They didn't do necessarily very much change in the design, but they took the entire website, which is kind of complicated and made the entire thing responsive.