VacuumLabs

Introduction

Prepared by:

VacuumLabs s.r.o.

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Company Introduction

VacuumLabs is a digital product agency based in Bratislava, Slovakia. Our corporate mission is best described through our motto “Courage, excellence, impact”. Our clients value the most on us our ability to successfully deliver under a tight schedule and under high technological or qualitative demands.

Stress free development when needed We analyze, design, code, refine, test, deploy and maintain digital products for our clients worldwide. From simple web apps to advanced mobile & multi-platform integrated systems, our team can both help with the details of the product specifications with you or just deliver a fully working digital product based on your requirements.

We have already become the partner of choice for companies as Raiffeisen Bank Austria, Prizeo (Y Combinator accelerated startup), DataMolino (winner of the Wayra Prague Accelerator), Innovatrics (global player in fingerprint analysis) and others.

Best talent in the region Every single engineer has been internationally awarded and our international consulting team has extensive experience in UX, UI, Design, Copywriting, Backend flexibility, Scalability, Data Security, Front-end, APIs and Product Branding.

In collaboration with the award-winning business incubator, The Spot, we have a direct pipeline to the best talent available for your project in Slovakia. Just last year, we have expanded our team by 8 top notch engineers and UX designers.

Our clients benefit from more than 10 years of experience of our engineers and consultants on projects ranging from SaaS, telemetry, web content portals, elearning, gaming, weather and financial prediction models, multi-platform integrated solutions and many more.

Always on the cutting edge in technology To stay on track with the up to date technologies we organize regular tech meetups, host lectures on universities and also lead a couple of master theses in the field of seamless web data synchronization. Our position papers on Dart and Python are highly regarded by thought leaders in the community.

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Selected Projects with References

We would like to briefly introduce you some of the projects we have worked on with the references:

RAIFFEISEN BANK AUSTRIA Overview: Raiffeisen bank Austria and McKinsey & Company approached us with a request to develop and set up the infrastructure for an internal project to be used in their banking environment. The goal was to create a simplified version of Raiffeisen bank’s existing banking software, to be used for training employees and monitoring their internal processes. In a challenging pursuit with time and under a very tight schedule (3 weeks), we delivered a working solution, fully-compliant with strict banking standards set by the client.

Based on the client’s satisfaction, our cooperation with Raiffeisenbank Austria has continued on further extensions to the system after the initial pilot.

Technologies used: Python with Pyramids framework, JQuery with JavascriptMVC framework, PostgreSQL, ArchLinux, DebianLinux.

“If all projects built by external developers were developed as well to specification, as quick, and as inexpensive as this one, innovation and advancement in banking would be a lot faster.”

– Ulf Wallman, Product Manager Raiffeisen Bank Austria

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MEDIWORX Supplier of software solutions for the Slovak healthcare industry

Overview: Mediworx approached us with a request to quickly develop a rather complex client-side component for Gantt Chart visualization and manipulation to be used in their medical software solutions.

Technologies used: JavaScript, JQuery, D3.js.

We’ve been extremely satisfied with the cooperation with the VacuumLabs team. Even under a tight work schedule, they have managed to deliver a professional solution. The reliability and quality of their work really convinced us and we’re looking forward to further projects together in the future.

– Ján Tomášik, CEO

Mediworx, a.s.

LIGY.SK

Overview: This is the first community soccer portal to provide a comprehensive overview of Slovak and international soccer leagues, divisions and teams. By crowdsourcing the results of matches and offering in-depth statistics on players and teams, ligy.sk became a strong tool in the hands of Slovak soccer fans. The whole technical execution of the product was carried out by our core team.

Technologies used: PHP with Zend Framework, JQuery, MySQL and Memcached.

PRIZEO

Overview: Prizeo is a rising star crowd-founded charity startup which earned public recognition by working with global celebrities like Justin Bieber, Samuel Lee Jackson, Lady Gaga and others; also by being accepted to the prestigious Y Combinator accelerator in 2013. We helped them create a front-end heavy online editor soon to be launched as an exciting new feature of theirs.

Technologies used: based on svg-edit framework, Javascript/JQuery, Bootstrap and Scala.

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DATAMOLINO.COM

Overview: The winner of the Wayra Prague Accelerator 2013 focuses on automated digitalization and processing of invoices. From the early days of the product, we have had one of our senior consultants on their team as the Technical Manager, that has ensured that the development is on time and in the required quality.

“ FANDIM.SK

Overview: After being approached by an international investor with creating a platform for casual sports gaming online, we have built the first fantasy league manager for soccer in Slovakia. A team of 6 developers have built the product in the course of nine months, leveraging modern approaches to responsive web design and product building on a new technology stack. The product is ready for a soft launch in Slovakia for this summer and we have already started implementing additional sports and internationalizing the product for markets in South America and the Russian speaking countries.

Technologies used: Amazon AWS, Amazon S3, Dart, MongoDB, Facebook React, Compass and our homebred Clean framework.

CASHMON.SK

Overview: A Slovak startup for managing finances, with several complex features and advanced statistics. The whole technical execution of the product was carried out by our core team.

Our other precious clients include: Promoteri.cz, QualityUnit.com, Kvant.sk, BetAndTip, StartupAwards.sk, The Spot and others.

Additional detailed references can be provided upon request.

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Execution methods and planning

Our preferred way of approaching client projects is Agile. Having a track-record of more than a dozen of successful Agile projects, our team has a strong preference for working this way; however we are open to different ways of cooperation if required by the customer.

Our approach to planning

We acknowledge there are multiple approaches to planning within the existing portfolio of agile methodologies. We are open to follow any of the standard methodologies you would recommend, otherwise we use our company default.

Types of plans. Commonly, we hold two levels of plans for a project: a project plan (broken down into sub plans for milestones/releases if needed) and iteration plans.

Deadlines given by business requirements, along with our initial range estimates are what drives the design of the project plan. As the project progresses, we further elaborate the plan into more detailed, and accurate, iteration plans.

Planning iterations. We regularly engage with the client in a discussion what should we build in the next iteration(s).

Given there are no specific preferences and functional dependencies, we prioritize the epics in our backlog according to the assessed technological risk embraced within the requirements for the epic. This way we are able to collect quick feedback on technologically uncertain parts of the project scope1, rule out the uncertainties early and thus improve the predictability of the overall project plan.

Once the user stories for the next iteration are selected, we start committing to final time estimates. Leveraging the most current knowledge about the codebase, functional dependencies and other emergent factors, we are able to give a specific number of hours required by each user story. We guarantee that this number falls into the range given by the initial estimates.

In case these estimates don’t fit into the time box of the planned sprint, we are always ready to make managerial decisions about resources and scope.

1 E.g. integration with 3rd party APIs or complex business logic

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May interest you: The 95% confidence interval for our iteration estimates is currently at +/-25% of hours worked, averaging on a factor of +1.07 (based on 10 latest iterations on a project team of 5-7 members).

Risk management. Unless we deal with a large or complex project, we only work with simple risk management plans. For small projects we prefer holding an upfront open discussion about the perceived risks with all stakeholders, aiming for a common understanding what the risks are, what is the likelihood of them happening, and what are the strategies for mitigating the risks.

Monitoring. Within iterations, we hold regular stand-up meetings every day where the whole team plans for the following day. This way, the person responsible for the management of the project from our side is able to quickly react on whatever problem may arise.

Our approach to Quality Assurance

For Quality Assurance reasons we enforce the following processes:

• We unit-test our code. Depending on the complexity of the code we aim for high code-coverage by automated tests. Having all the business logic tested is the entry level of QA we are willing to work on.

• We create automated component, integration and API tests as an integral part of the development process.

• We use GitHub/Bitbucket for pull-requests. This means, at least two pairs of eyes see the code before pushing into the version control system. As a complementary activity we regularly engage developers in pair coding sessions.

• We have a dedicated functional tester, who engages in simulated UAT, exploratory testing and also regression testing upon the end of every iteration.

Our approach to Communication

We prefer open, regular and constructive communication with all the relevant stakeholders on the project, either digitally (Skype calls, e-mail, phone calls) or face to face.

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Our approach to on-site work

In our experience, it is beneficial to the success of the project if clients’ internal developers connected to the project are on-site with our team, at least for the beginning of the cooperation.

In case that the client decides to have his employees or external consultants connected with the project working on-site with our team, we are happy to provide them with adequate working space at our offices in Bratislava, Slovakia on our expenses.

We are also willing to have our team work from the clients’ premises, however extra charges apply.

Our approach to Licensing and Intellectual Rights

All rights to the deliverables and also the source code of the project are transferred upon iteration acceptance to the client in the full possible manner allowed by the governing law under which the partnership agreement is signed. We do not reserve the right to resell or otherwise use any of the work that is made specifically for the client purposes.

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Team

Our team is consisting of almost twenty talented young people that provide outstanding results for international clients. We selected some of our developers that are ready for you. In addition we have additional talent that can provide support when needed.

The team is lead and the technical architecture is designed by: • Samuel Hapák — Lead Architect and Team Lead

The structure of the dedicated team is: • Marcela Hrdá — Senior Developer and Assistant Architect • Martin Pitoňak — Developer • Marián Horňák — Developer • Nikola Hrdá — Functional Tester

In special cases, the team will be short-term supported by: • Tomáš Kulich — Architect • Milan Darjanin — Front-end Specialist

The dedicated team can also be extended by: • Martin Rejdar — Senior Developer • Martin Macko — Senior Developer • Peter Herman — Developer • Rafael Korbáš — Developer Additional information about these developers is upon request.

Team Bios

Samuel Hapák (25) Lead Architect & Team Lead Co-founder of VacuumLabs

Samuel has taken a leading voice in architecture of almost every VacuumLabs project up to date. His core expertise is also his foremost passion — finding simple and elegant solutions to challenging problems.

Before founding VacuumLabs, Samuel excelled at almost every international competition he attended in areas of

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Mathematics, Physics and Informatics and ended up winning eight medals. Able to rapidly absorb any new concept or technology, creative and organized, Samuel is a promise of quick, rock-solid solutions to any problem.

Samuel will be responsible for setting up the architecture of your project, making technical decisions and managing the work of the team. The implementation of critical parts of the codebase will be thoroughly supervised by him.

Mgr. Marcela Hrdá (26) Senior Developer & Assistant Architect 3 years at VacuumLabs

Before joining the VacuumLabs team, Marcela has earned substantial developer experience in Microstep MIS, a company aimed at delivering complex systems for the meteorological industry. In VacuumLabs, she has worked on a number of key projects, gaining extensive experience in every part of the development process, including architecture and management of small projects.

Her developer and analytical skillset is backed up by a solid academic career — she studied Physics on Caltech in California, she earned a Master’s degree on Comenius University, she has also worked at the Slovak Academy of Sciences. As a regular attendee of international competitions, she earned a bronze medal on the International Physics Olympiad.

It has proven that Marcela’s hard-working attitude and attention to detail make every complex challenge manageable.

Bc. Martin Pitoňák (24) Developer 1 year at VacuumLabs

Martin has graduated from Computer Science at FMFI UK and has previously worked with the VacuumLabs team on middle-scale projects for international clients.

Fast-thinking, organized and able to work both individually and in a team, Martin is a person who is able to quickly turn complex requirements into a working system.

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Marián Horňák (23) Developer 1 year at VacuumLabs

After winning 2 bronze medals from International Olympiads in Mathematics and Informatics he has decided to volunteer as a Programming Couch for young programmers. Beside that and working for Vacuumlabs, he is also responsible for development and system administration ofinternal systems in Trojsten — a Comenius University backed organization aimed at educating high-school talents in the areas of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics. Reliable and fast-learning, Marián is a valuable member to be on any of our projects.

Nikola Hrdá (22) Functional Tester 2 years at VacuumLabs

Nikola is our former occasional junior developer who found her passion in the domain of Quality Assurance. She is responsible for writing test plans and doing thorough functional testing on our core projects.

Thanks to her systematic approach combined with the ability to see systems from the users’ perspective we have experienced major increase in our output quality since she joined our team.

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Expert Pool Bios

Tomáš Kulich (30) Architect Co-founder & CTO of VacuumLabs

Strong with algorithms, system architecture and emphatic with people, Tomáš is an example of an ideal CTO.

Previously voted for the most popular lecturer at Faculty of Informatics in Bratislava, he also has a solid academic track in hardcore algorithmic matters few of us actually comprehend.

Tomáš has been part of every project in VacuumLabs, having hands-on experience with over a dozen of backend, front-end and database technologies. Currently

he works as an architect and technical manager, excersizing his coding skills in his free time on our internal open-source project Clean Sync.

Milan Darjanin (25) Front-end Specialist 2 years at VacuumLabs

Milan is an invaluable part of our team. We suspect, that the reason why he became an exceptional front-end developer roots from his calm and systematic nature.His foremost professional passion is building userinterfaces that look great and are easy to use.

He has worked with CSS3 and HTML5 as soon as they became available and knows all the nifty specifics of browsers inside-out. He is also experienced with SVG, jQuery, JavaScript, all major CSS preprocessors (but prefers Compass) and Photoshop.

In a nutshell, he is our go-to guy for every front-end related question imaginable

We are looking forward to work with you !

Martin Homola

Business development

martin.homola@vacuumlabs.com

+1 (650) 630-9216