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Verified Profile
SoftBlues is a web and mobile development company, with 15 years’ experience focused on JavaScript (React.js, Vue.js, Node.js, and React Native), working with both startups and large businesses. We have completed over 700 projects in various fields and are proud to have worked with both industry leaders and B2B startups that serve thousands of clients and have gained millions of dollars of investment. Our core expertise is Business Automation, E-Commerce, Automotive, Fleet Management, and AgriTech.
With a narrow focus on JavaScript technology, we have developed our internal JS ecosystem with strong Tech Leads and more than 40 highly qualified Senior-Middle developers. We also have our own trainee program, as we are committed to the development of our specialists and the personal and professional growth of each member of the team. In addition, each team member has their own professional development plan to help them become leaders in JS technologies.
Our services:
- Custom web and mobile development from scratch. Our company carries out a detailed estimation of the project, after which our specialists select the best technologies to ensure a successful launch of the project. We allocate a fully-fledged team for each project (business analyst, project manager, UX / UI designer, QA and senior-middle developers, DevOps) and control the development from the beginning to the moment of delivery.
- Dedicated teams for existing products. We select a team of qualified specialists, consisting of Senior-middle-junior developers under the supervision of a qualified and certified Tech Lead, to help you onboard the right team and control quality.
SoftBlues - powered by JavaScript technology and driven by talent. Feel free to contact us!
Locations
Ukraine
Kamyanetska 33,
Lviv,
Lviv
79034
0631668885
Focus Areas
Service Focus
- Web Development
- E-commerce Development
- Software Development
- IT Services
Client Focus
- Small Business
- Medium Business
- Large Business
Industry Focus
- E-commerce
- Education
Softblues Executive Interview
Ivan Pylypchuk
Founder & CEO
Please introduce your company and give a brief about your role within the organization.
SoftBlues is 16+ years experienced Outsourcing and Product company that provides expert software engineering and consultancy services. Also, we develop our eCommerce Products - CMS, themes and have more than 15 plugins to improve work with eCommerce, made with such well-known partners as WooCommerce and Pinterest. SoftBlues provides full circle software development by focusing on modern stack technologies like Progressive Web and Mobile Applications, GatsbyJS, Laravel, React, Jam Stack, Headless eCommerce and has a huge experience with WordPress and WooCommerce solutions for business. Now my role in this field is strategic planning, negotiations with key partners, and new practices and processes implementation.
What is the story behind starting this company?
I started in 2004 as a web developer. At this time in our country (I am from Ukraine) the Internet eCommerce was just beginning and very few people understood why they needed a website. After the first 2-3 projects, I decided to turn this startup into a full-fledged business and organize my own agency. We began to actively scale the provided services for the creation of corporate sites. In 2008 we realized that the existing content management systems like Joomla or Drupal did not allow us to make the process of website development efficient due to the lack of flexibility in the template system. Since we strived to create products that are optimal in design and structure, we decided to develop our own content management system (CMS) called ImageCMS and it was very successful - we have made more than 3000 commercial websites with this CMS till now. At some point, we received feedback from our clients that we were very competitive with Bitrix and in 2009 we were listed as TOP10 CMS in CIS.
A significant moment was in 2017 when with a large number of orders, we decided to make our first plugin to optimize and simplify our work. Then we realized that such plugins would be useful not only for us but for other developers too. So now we have more than 15 eCommerce plugins, and we became the official partners of WooCommerce and Pinterest. And this is far from the limit - we have very ambitious plans for this area.
A significant moment was in 2017 when with a large number of orders, we decided to make our first plugin to optimize and simplify our work. Then we realized that such plugins would be useful not only for us but for other developers too. So now we have more than 15 eCommerce plugins, and we became the official partners of WooCommerce and Pinterest. And this is far from the limit - we have very ambitious plans for this area.
What are your company’s business model–in house team or third party vendors/ outsourcing?
Mostly we use our in house team - now we have more than 60 in house experienced developers, who can cope with any eCommerce custom business solution. But sometimes, due to our needs, we can cooperate with third-party vendors. For example, we had a great experience with developing products together with WooCommerce and Pinterest.
How does your company differentiate itself from the competition?
This is an interesting question since for a long time we had been developing our own platform for managing eCommerce websites. Now it is a very popular CMS in Ukraine and CIS countries (more than 3000 real online stores). And at some point, we realized that we have enough experience to bring our expertise into other popular platforms like WooCommerce to enlarge our audience and continue developing cool solutions. After analyzing the main shortcomings of WooCommerce in terms of the possibilities for customization and development of the store, it was decided to develop our plugins and themes that enhance marketing, SEO, and usability aspects of WooCommerce. So, I think we have huge expertise in custom eCommerce solutions, agritech, automotive, education & LMS domains.
What industries do you generally cater to? Are your customers repetitive? If yes, what ratio of clients has been repetitive to you?
As I have said we have deep experience in custom eCommerce solutions, especially in agritech, automotive, education & LMS industries. But our domains of expertise are not limited to these industries only, we have made numerous successful projects and can deliver projects of most world level of complexity. Thanks to the quality of our work, good planning, and on-time delivery, most of our clients remain satisfied and become repetitive. More than half of our clients return or become regular customers.
Please share some of the services that you offer for which clients approach you the most for?
As for the WordPress ecosystem, the main projects that we are proud of are our plugins. Since we made them for our needs, now it is very nice to see that they are helping thousands of developers. For example, Permalink Manager Plugin - in few clicks can change all the URL of an online store and set up automated 301 redirects to improve the SEO of the site, Pinterest Plugin - allows you to upload thousands of products to this popular social network in 2 minutes, this is very important for eCommerce developers and customers. Accordingly, with extensive experience here, we can bring additional value to clients who need to develop custom plugins or custom eCommerce solutions.
What is your customer satisfaction rate according to you? What steps do you take to cater to your customer’s needs and requirements?
As I mentioned, more than half of our customers become regular clients. I think this is quite a good satisfaction rate, but we always try to improve the quality of our work, this is important for us. Every project begins with a comprehensive plan, defined timeframe, and a deadline for every milestone. Failure to plan is a plan to fail. Everyday working tasks are no exception.
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.)
This depends on the project. But we try to be flexible due to customer's needs when we’re defining the billing structure for projects. So all these kinds of payment are available, we can take full ownership over a product with fixed prices, or Pay on Delivery if there’s strong product management expertise on the client’s side.
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?
We are open to all clients. Especially for our regular clients, so we can take even a little few days project that has the potential to grow into a far bigger opportunity. Budget isn’t the only factor we consider when we’re discussing a new project with a client.
What is the price range (min and max) of the projects that you catered to in 2020?
In 2020, it ranged from $0 for volunteer and charitable projects to almost $1M for commercial projects. But we do not believe that price should be the most important aspect. We prefer to focus on satisfying customer needs and growing the company's overall revenue. In 2020, we will achieve 100+% growth compared to 2019, which tells us that we provide great services and great value to our customers.
Where do you see your company in the next 10 years?
After a crazy 2020, it's difficult for us to plan as much as 10 years ahead. Now we have a strategic development plan for 5 years only.
Softblues Clients & Portfolios
Softblues Reviews
4 Reviews
- All Services
- E-commerce Development
- Software Development
- Relevance
- Most Recent
- Rating: high to low
- Rating: low to high
Tetyana Sobol
Posted on May 26, 2020
Sapone.com.ua, an eCommerce store for ingredients of handmade cosmetics with a blog, ensuring tech support and SEO optimization service
Review Summary
Back in 2008, I was looking for a reliable technical vendor to develop and support an online retail shop of ingredients for cosmetics manufacturing. The project was aimed at providing high standards of service and best practices for working with a narrow segment of clients. It was an eCommerce project from scratch, starting from bare development, content platform adjustment, SEO optimization and initiation of the first sales. It required careful business planning, creation of the unique web design and all the UI/UX elements, development of the customized features and functions according to my requirements.
I also needed full tech support of the project in the future, including server solutions updates, manager training and support.
Regarding their work, I can say that I am happy with our cooperation. The team and all the workflow processes are all smooth and convenient for me. Thanks to the quality of its fulfillment and careful attention to details, I didn’t have to worry about other processes. I can say that our cooperation has been and still is based on trust.
Currently, we’re refactoring a store by moving to more up-to-date technology and design with SoftBlues in September 2019 and this stage is still in progress.
I also needed full tech support of the project in the future, including server solutions updates, manager training and support.
Regarding their work, I can say that I am happy with our cooperation. The team and all the workflow processes are all smooth and convenient for me. Thanks to the quality of its fulfillment and careful attention to details, I didn’t have to worry about other processes. I can say that our cooperation has been and still is based on trust.
Currently, we’re refactoring a store by moving to more up-to-date technology and design with SoftBlues in September 2019 and this stage is still in progress.
What is it about the company that you appreciate the most?
I could call them any time and get answers to all my questions I could possibly have. They have provided feedback on all my ideas and would offer me a solution immediately online, providing a preliminary estimation. They are very attentive to details, and this is in fact what I needed. They would not only perform tasks, but approach wisely and do them right, or even tell me what is not necessary.
What was it about the company that you didn't like which they should do better?
Nothing comes to my mind.
Robert, Employee at Crafty Entertainment
Posted on May 19, 2020
Great
Review Summary
We have worked with Softblues several times (they have worked on the design of our website and have created custom features and plugins) and each time it has been a pleasure. Ivan and his team are very professional, responsive and their work is excellent. We are looking forward to working with them again in the future and would definitely recommend them.
Dmitry Romanov, Commercial Director at Dobrodiya Foods LLC
Posted on Feb 28, 2020
A PWA for internal HR management
Review Summary
We’ve hired SoftBlues to develop a tech solution to automate and monitor the operational and processes all over the company.
Some of the essential HR processes needed to be scaled, so we’ve hired SoftBlues to create a PWA that will:
manage the human resources in the whole group (nearly 300 people)
manage workflow and personnel
distribute tasks and track performance
We picked SoftBlues for cooperation after a detailed SWOT analysis of the candidates that we found online. The SoftBlues team picked up our vision very quickly, have asked all the detailed questions about the product, and overall demonstrated both tech and business expertise. In August 2019, SoftBlues started the PWA development with the priorly planned release in March 2020.
We appreciate their work, as they demonstrated a very proactive approach and engagement in the project. We liked the way they established smart budgeting with no additional actions that could be seen as overrated.
The structure of our workflow with SoftBlues, the speed, and communication patterns were more than we expected. We consider this approach to be a top-notch attitude today and essential, especially when working remotely.
As the project is ongoing, we can say that all the milestones of our project have been completed on time so far. Overall, we have found a trustworthy tech partner that we can rely upon and feel safe that everything goes according to the predetermined plan and enable us to achieve our business goals.
Some of the essential HR processes needed to be scaled, so we’ve hired SoftBlues to create a PWA that will:
manage the human resources in the whole group (nearly 300 people)
manage workflow and personnel
distribute tasks and track performance
We picked SoftBlues for cooperation after a detailed SWOT analysis of the candidates that we found online. The SoftBlues team picked up our vision very quickly, have asked all the detailed questions about the product, and overall demonstrated both tech and business expertise. In August 2019, SoftBlues started the PWA development with the priorly planned release in March 2020.
We appreciate their work, as they demonstrated a very proactive approach and engagement in the project. We liked the way they established smart budgeting with no additional actions that could be seen as overrated.
The structure of our workflow with SoftBlues, the speed, and communication patterns were more than we expected. We consider this approach to be a top-notch attitude today and essential, especially when working remotely.
As the project is ongoing, we can say that all the milestones of our project have been completed on time so far. Overall, we have found a trustworthy tech partner that we can rely upon and feel safe that everything goes according to the predetermined plan and enable us to achieve our business goals.
Евгений Кугук, CEO at Innovative agrotechnology
Posted on Jan 16, 2020
FieldBI - An innovation platform for agro-company management
Review Summary
We’ve hired SoftBlues as our technology partner to automate some of the essential business processes in our company so that we can optimize our costs and improve efficiency. SoftBlues was given the task of creating a custom platform that could effectively manage all our major operations such as:
managing the land registry
obtaining geo-data on land
tracking soil fertility
analyzing crops using images captured by drones
managing personnel
distribution and task performance
The platform has a strategic meaning for the development of our company and we’re planning not only to apply it to our company processes but also to promote it as a product to our counterparts. SoftBlues has a very product-oriented approach. They listened to our requirements thoroughly, asked numerous questions and provided us with
a few useful insights into user experience. They’re proactive and at the same time they seem to allocate the project’s budget wisely. Everything goes to the predetermined plan and we feel safe in terms of our short-term and long-term business goals achievement.
We workflow is well-structured. The teams demonstrate a high level of responsibility at every stage of our cooperation. We defined our project milestones and all the project’s stages have been completed on time so far. We conduct everyday meetings and run two week sprints followed by retrospectives. The team is really engaged and you sense that every time you talk to them. All of our project is coordinated in Jira and we find it very effective and transparent.
Overall, SoftBlues has been meeting all our expectations and we would recommend cooperation with this software development firm.
managing the land registry
obtaining geo-data on land
tracking soil fertility
analyzing crops using images captured by drones
managing personnel
distribution and task performance
The platform has a strategic meaning for the development of our company and we’re planning not only to apply it to our company processes but also to promote it as a product to our counterparts. SoftBlues has a very product-oriented approach. They listened to our requirements thoroughly, asked numerous questions and provided us with
a few useful insights into user experience. They’re proactive and at the same time they seem to allocate the project’s budget wisely. Everything goes to the predetermined plan and we feel safe in terms of our short-term and long-term business goals achievement.
We workflow is well-structured. The teams demonstrate a high level of responsibility at every stage of our cooperation. We defined our project milestones and all the project’s stages have been completed on time so far. We conduct everyday meetings and run two week sprints followed by retrospectives. The team is really engaged and you sense that every time you talk to them. All of our project is coordinated in Jira and we find it very effective and transparent.
Overall, SoftBlues has been meeting all our expectations and we would recommend cooperation with this software development firm.
Company Response
Softblues
Working with your company has been a great experience for us and we hope that our project will make a considerable change in the way your company develops.
Posted on Jan 16, 2020