What we do
We build custom tools that help people use the web to collaborate, automate, and be more productive.
What we’re like
We are proud of the reputation we’ve built and we are admittedly selective in the clients we take on, but we think you’ll also find us to be the friendliest, most laid back, and least pretentious folks you’ve ever worked with.
Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. The size of your organization and budget matter far less to us than if you’re friendly, inquisitive, and have an interesting problem that we can help you solve.
Even if we’re not the firm for you, we know of a lot of good people in the Rails and web design world, and we’re always happy to refer you to colleagues whom we trust to take care of your needs.
Our tools
We specialize in the Ruby on Rails platform, and Ruby programming in general. Most of our team members are active contributors to popular open-source Ruby projects like Ruby on Rails and the ActiveMerchant credit card payment processing library.
We also have specialists in CSS, Javascript (including Prototype and Scriptaculous), and Flash (including Adobe Air).
Our process
We always tell people that hiring us to build a piece of software is like hiring a high-end cabinetmaker to build an amazing piece of hand-crafted furniture:
- You let us know what you want and we work together on the plans.
- You make a down-payment.
- We then go off and work at a measured pace, building something beautiful, elegant, and functional according to your needs.
- When it’s ready, we show you the results.
- We work through cycles of requested fixes and revisions as above, until we all agree that the product is ready.
- You pay us according to the agreed price.
It really is that simple.
In this way, we’re really quite old-fashioned. All of our business processes are organized around work quality first and foremost, designed to support the creative process and to empower each team member to focus on what he or she does best.
Project managed
From the earliest stages of your project, you’ll be assigned a project manager. Some of our project managers have backgrounds in business and others in software engineering, but all of them have an understanding of both.
The project manager’s job is to be the client’s liaison with the technical and creative teams who will be building the application, and to some extent to act as insulation between the two. This helps our team focus on doing higher-quality work more productively and without interruption, but the project manager also acts to bridge the divide between a client’s interests and the engineers’ sometimes arcane technical language and minutiae.
He or she will work with you to make sure that your requirements are documented in a way that our engineers can understand. The project manager will then work to make sure that the application is built according to those specifications, showing you iterations along the way to solicit your feedback and any changes you might like in the next cycle of work.
The project manager is also in charge of quality assurance—of verifying that the project’s requirements are properly reflected in the end product.
Iterative
We work in cycles of construction called iterations, which separate areas of functionality into discrete bits, which, when complete, will constitute a prototype that we can demo to a client. We agree upon the work to be done in an iteration and then set to work. During an iterative cycle, requirements don’t change and very little communication happens between client and developer. This is the time for "putting our heads down" and focusing on the product itself.
Then we deploy a prototype version of the application and solicit intensive review and feedback from the client. This feedback is turned into a new list of tasks and/or requirements (with an accompanying quote adjustment if necessary), and the cycle begins anew, until the application is completed to everyone’s satisfaction.
Globally distributed and web-based, but often unplugged
While our company is headquartered here in Boston, we have assembled our creative and engineering teams based on their skills, not their physical locations. This means that we have folks spread across many time zones, and we all work together as a team of friends with no distinctions based on who lives where or what flag happens to fly over our heads. It also means that we sometimes keep weird hours.
We also believe in creative and productive solitude. Software development and creative work are both highly sensitive to interruptions. This is why we prefer the asynchronous nature of e-mail and use it as our primary mode of communication (both with clients and internally).
While we’re always happy—and indeed prefer—to meet up with clients in person for planning and strategy sessions, we don’t think it does our clients any favors to have us be always plugged in and available,
tethered to our iPhones 24/7. And so we’re not.
Pricing
We do most of our work under fixed-price quotes. That is, we prefer to reach consensus with clients on what exactly it is that we’re building before we actually start doing the building. Agreed-upon requirements and pricing minimize the potential for misunderstandings or conflicts of interest once work is underway.
The smallest fixed-quote projects that we have built from the ground up tend to start at around $8,000, and we’ve built projects on existing platforms for as little as $2,000. We have built projects that go up into the six-figure range, and everything in between.
We also perform work for some clients under an hourly agreement. Typically, this is for smaller projects where we are fulfilling a consulting or maintenance role, but some clients prefer an hourly arrangement so as not to spend time muddling in the paperwork of fixed-bid contracts. We’re happy to oblige those who prefer this method.
Requirements documentation
In order to give formal price quotes, we’ll need some fairly specific details of your requirements.
If your project doesn’t yet have detailed requirements documentation, we’ll be happy to work with you to draft it. (You’ll be glad you did.) At the end of this process, you’ll have a highly-specific set of written requirements (including data model diagrams), which you’ll own. You can either then hire us to build that application for you, or take this documentation to another provider to have it built—it’s up to you.
We charge $4,000 for this service, with 50% creditable against the cost of development if you decide to have us build the documented application.
Portfolio
Learn a bit about the kind of work we like to do from our portfolio.
We’re also always happy to provide references of delighted former customers to qualified prospective clients.