Kindly share your feedback on how Goodfirms has been doing so far in increasing your visibility among potential clients.
Goodfirms has been doing an excellent job in increasing our visibility among potential clients. We've seen our online activity increase significantly. They have provided CactusSoft with more exposure and have been very helpful in the process of marketing our services. Having the Goodfirms reference insignia is an endorsement of our brand. Highly recommended.
Please introduce your company and give a brief about your role within the organization.
At Cactussoft we make software. Our customers are Western European companies. We bridge the gap between the roadmap towards an evermore digital society in Western Europe and qualitative software talent and solutions from South and Eastern Europe. I am the founder of Cactussoft in Belgium (founded in 2016) and have been leading the company as CEO since then.
What is the story behind starting this company?
A good friend of mine approached me (being a consultant back then) with the imminent question to help him source a huge software project he already sold, but was unable to conduct with his own staff. Some weeks later and after many trips around Europe, we jointly decided to source talent in Eastern Europe and only 4 weeks later a full team of 14 developers was up and running. The project was successfully delivered and I got the opportunity to scale the company to other customers. Cactussoft Belgium was born!
What are your company’s business model–in house team or third party vendors/ outsourcing?
We do almost all by ourselves. Knowing our staff, and their strengths (and shortcomings) allows us to match requests with the right person. Therefore less than 10% is outsourced, mainly in domains where we have little or no experience or when the request is very small in size. As a consultancy company, it remains paramount to build up capabilities and be sure about the quality delivered.
How does your company differentiate itself from the competition?
First of all, we are very close to our customers: Cactussoft’s leadership team is based in Belgium and is run by people with large experience in doing business in the Benelux, Israel, and the US where most of our customers are based as well: we understand the business acumen and can translate it towards remote teams. Unlike other providers, we stand next to the customer and combine local knowledge with a remote workforce. Using this context we pay special attention to the matching of demand and supply in terms starting from the customer’s perspective first.
Our second differentiator is in the speed of delivery of solutions to the customers. We are best-in-class in the recruitment of talent through experienced teams and well-thought processes. It is a crucial element to help your customers out quickly.
What industries do you generally cater to? Are your customers repetitive? If yes, what ratio of clients has been repetitive to you?
We are mainly active in proptech, mobility, telecom, and health tech. About 60% of our annual turnover comes from customers who were already there a year before.
Please share some of the services that you offer for which clients approach you the most for?
Customers reach out to us for all kinds of software challenges. Mostly they encounter a business challenge and look for a party that can help them define and implement the best software solution. We assess the situation with our broad experience and evolve quickly to a concrete plan that solves the issue. Concretely this results often in assigning a team (often dedicated) to a customer for a certain period or executing a project with clear milestones.
What is your customer satisfaction rate according to you? What steps do you take to cater to your customer’s needs and requirements?
Most customers rate us highly, especially because we care. Several rating platforms confirm this. We try to be very detailed and exhaustive during the project ideation/orientation/discovery phase. We often do this on-site to capture the details as well and take the time to discuss options – even before conducting any development – with our most senior architects.
What kind of support system do you offer to your clients for catering to their queries and issues?
We have a support team that works based on a ticketing system for (urgent) customer requests based on earlier delivered projects. Through this process, they reach out to us, and depending on the SLA we try to solve each ticket fast.
New requests got captured by our local team based in Belgium and within 1-2 days we set up a call to discuss the request. For vague requests we organize a discovery phase, for very detailed requests we do our homework and get back to the customer with an approach straight away.
What kind of payment structure do you follow to bill your clients? Is it Pay per Feature, Fixed Cost, Pay per Milestone (could be in phases, months, versions etc.)
We offer what suits the customer and his business model best: it could be a billing scheme per sprint, milestone planning, a fixed price, or even a result-based remuneration. For one start-up customer, we got paid for his success in the market: this has aligned all objectives from the start.
Do you take in projects which meet your basic budget requirement? If yes, what is the minimum requirement? If no, on what minimum budget you have worked for?
The minimum budget is typically around 25k eur. Under this barrier, we advise companies to engage with a local consultant on-site. Working remotely requires a minimum scale. You set up a process, introduce different roles, and need some governance to deliver properly. This only works at a certain scale.
What is the price range (min and max) of the projects that you catered to in 2022?
The smallest project was around 25k eur whereas the biggest customer catered for +/- 500k eur.
Where do you see your company in the next 10 years?
In this industry of quickly evolving development, it is hard to predict. Nevertheless, I am convinced technology will play an even more vital role 10 years from now. Looking at the youth we still see a huge lack of interest in technology in high schools in Western Europe, so the mismatch of talent will continue to exist. Of course, the tailor-made solutions will be gradually replaced by low-code solutions and modules that now seem complex will be normal, like AI. New technologies will however emerge, keeping our industry exciting and thriving.
