What Ensemble Needed
Ensemble came to ModeStack with an urgent need. The payment system for their coworking CRM (customer relationship management) web application was broken. With every day that passed, Ensemble and their clients hemorrhaged money.
Ensemble is a next generation technology platform that solves the problem that the growing coworking industry faces today – to easily manage and connect communities that delight, inspire and enrich people’s lives – to create places where members want to go and stay.
“The experience and dev-ops expertise of ModeStack team allowed them to quickly take over our very complex project, create efficiency, and build much needed features which enabled our team to secure important customers. David and his team are readily available and vested in the success of our project.”
-Adam Feld, CEO, MESHWORK
Discovery
Tech Assessment
The Ensemble project began with our typical Discovery Phase. When there is existing code, Discovery includes a Tech Assessment. We ask questions like what is the existing tech stack? Are there obvious issues or bugs? How large or complex is the code base? Through this process, we get a clearer picture of how simple or difficult it may be to reach a client’s project goals.
For Ensemble, we identified the payment module as the biggest pain point in terms of business ROI — a serious obstacle to getting acquired.
Identify Skills
At ModeStack, we want to be more than just development contractors. We want to integrate with and compliment your existing, internal team. For that reason our Discovery Phase always includes an assessment of team members’ skills.
Ensemble already had beautiful designs and design partners on their team. They needed technical advice and expertise — a perfect fit for the ModeStack team.
Identify Goals
In order to be successful, we need to understand the project goals. We worked with Ensemble to identify 3 key goals for their project.
1. Find and repair the leak in the payment system
2. Attract new customers
3. Raise capital for on-going development
Proposal & Estimate
Based on the tech and skills assessment, ModeStack delivered a Proposal & Estimate to meet Ensemble’s project goals. This document included pricing options and timeline projections to help Ensemble prioritize and plan the development project.
We proposed:
1. Immediate maintenance to rewrite faulty payment module
2. New feature development to attract new customers
A stable app and increased traction, we proposed, would set Ensemble on the right track to impress investors and successfully raise capital — their third goal.
Development & Rewrite
To meet Ensemble’s goals in a timely manner, ModeStack provided two teams working concurrently, one team to quickly fix the broken payment module and a second team to build the new features. Using this approach, we were able to finish the project in just three months.
Following the existing design patterns, we created four new features:
1. Booking feature for co-working resources – conference rooms, event spaces
2. Reporting feature – income statement, bank reconciliation report
3. Dashboard KPIs – revenue by month, membership growth %, community engagement scores
4. Payment features for booking resources
Success!
With a working payment system in place and brand new features, Ensemble stopped losing money and successfully attracted several new and important customers. They were able to begin the process of pitching to investors and gained initial interest and excitement.
Broken code? Want to attract new users?
Hi! I'm David, and I’d like to hear about your project. If we're a good fit, you will receive a free Goals Assessment.
