Client: deineStudienfinanzierung, a web platform for student financing, existing for 5 years.

Challenge: Rewrite the platform due to outdated technologies and changing product scope. Desired a lean, state-of-the-art platform focused on main features.

Solution: Opted for experienced freelancers for flexibility reasons. Chose my agency for its full-stack development expertise, with a focus on backend and infrastructure. Impressed by the agency's approach to problem-solving and technical solutions.

Process: Already had a clear vision of what was needed. Initial focus on foundational work using tools like NextJS, Apollo, React, and Prisma. Built upon this foundation to develop APIs, backend logic, and UI.

Communication: Utilised tools like Slack, Meet, Jira, and GitHub. Adopted a minimal meeting strategy with daily standups for effective remote collaboration.

Results: MVP launched within 3 months, with successful user migration from the old platform. Platform performed well from day one with thousands of initial users and minimal issues.

Cost Efficiency: Low infrastructure costs. The platform is scalable with minimal technical barriers.

Coding Experience: The foundation built was robust, making it easy to develop more complex flows.

Client's Advice: Finding the right team with specific expertise in both backend and frontend development is important. Trusted in the team's decision-making and proactive approach.

Recommendation: The client would recommend us for our competence, confidence, and communication skills. They appreciated the well-structured approach, proactive problem- solving, and technical expertise.

This is a case study with Marcus, the lead developer at deineStudienfinanzierung, that we helped rebuild the main product of the company. Here's a dialogue on how we worked together launching their MVP in a few months and scaling to thousands of users afterwards.

Can you tell us about your company, StudyFinancing?

We are a web platform for students to explore financing options for their studies. Our main focus is on providing an online application flow for the student loan of KfW, a German state-owned investment and development bank. Over our 5-year existence, we've evolved, adding and removing features. We recognized that we need to update due to deprecated technologies and changes in our product scope, and decided on a complete rewrite of our platform, aiming for a leaner, more focused product.

Why did you choose to work with our agency?

We wanted to achieve budget flexibility, which led us to seek freelancers, and you stood out during our search. We were impressed by your focus on backend and infrastructure and your approach to using modern technologies. As we wanted two freelancers, we were looking for a good combination and you really seemed to be a good fit. The decision was clear after our initial discussions, where you made a good impression when we talked and demonstrated impressive technical understanding and a clear vision of how to achieve our goals.

Back when we started, all we had was a diagram and the question “how would you build this?”. How would you describe the process from 0 to the MVP?

Having an established product meant we knew what we needed, but we wanted to have a clean view on things, so that we don’t just reimplement what we already had, but that we really make sure we think about it again and look into the best practices for the solution. We focused initially on foundational work, establishing libraries, frameworks, and tools, including NextJS, Apollo, React, and Prisma. The early weeks were spent setting up the database, app, and storage structures. Once the foundation was laid, we moved to developing the APIs, backend logic, and UI, integrating third-party APIs for data handling and working closely with your team to incrementally complete the flow.

How was communication managed in a fully remote setting?

We utilized Slack, Meet, Jira, and GitHub for communication and project management. Our initial phase included more detailed meetings for decision-making, then we transitioned to daily standups for quick sync-ups but we really tried to keep the meetings at a minimum so that we can all focus on developing. I think that worked very well, we managed to clarify most of the things though github, code reviews, through jira ticket comments, and, if necessary, Slack. But we barely had additional meeting on top. That made it possible that everybody worked in their own schedule. We made sure we had touchpoints, that we were available, but the work setup allowed everybody to work in their hours.

What was the weekly meeting time?

We had 15 minutes standups, which mostly were not that long, and from time to time we had more things to discuss, but not more than 1 or 2 hours on average a week.

How did the product scale after launching the MVP?

It worked well from day 1. We went live in the beginning of a critical phase, when many students come to our platform to submit their semester study certificates, which is a regular process that students have to do every half year. We were expecting relatively low traffic so that we can monitor that everything goes well, and that we could also switch back to the old platform if necessary, but we never had to use it. The user base is steadily growing. The platform has been stably running since day 1.

As a developer yourself, how do you find the coding experience on the new platform?

It’s very good. I am super happy with how well built the foundation is. I felt like it’s more or less plug and play, to bring all the pieces we already had together. It’s really easy to build more complex flows now based on the foundation we built.

What advice do you have for others looking for a software agency?

We tried to find a good match in the beginning. We knew exactly what we needed and what we wanted to achieve, and we had a clear view on what external resources we need. It was a pretty good decision to not have just generic developers, but experts in those 2 specific fields (backend and frontend), that are decision makers. I really had the confidence to trust in you to make the right decision. The confidence you give, your ideas and suggestions made me feel this is something I could trust.

Why would you recommend us to other customers?

Competence, confidence, communication skills, it was always very clear to communicate with you. You are very well structured, you made sure whatever we discussed was properly documented in Jira, Github. It was very nice for me, because I didn’t feel like I had to manage the project and you would just do the tasks I assign to you, but you really figured out ways of what you should do, how you should do it and this was something I was really happy about. It was not my sole responsibility of knowing what to do and how to do it. You were proactive to do those things, which I really liked. From a tech perspective, you proved that you really know, you have a lot of experience how to set up things, how to scale things, and to make the right decision. I wouldn’t doubt any technical decision that we have made in the last months.