How to choose Magento development agencies

Transcript

Brandon: Christian. It’s great to see you again. 

Christian: Hi, Brandon. Thank you for having me.  

Brandon:  Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for taking the time to introduce us to integer to talk a little bit about what you guys have been working on as of late. In fact, let’s do that, if you don’t mind. As a starting point, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and about integer_net and just tell us who you are?

Christian: Yes. Of course. Yeah. I’m a Christian Philipp. I’m the CEO of integer_net. High class solution partner for Magento. So, yeah, what we have done since 2012, more than ten years. Yeah, it’s Magento from day one on until today. It’s all Magento.

Brandon: That’s amazing. Honestly, it’s you guys who have built quite the legacy. I know your team has grown pretty substantial. You know, just like many agencies in space. But I think the projects, the quality you guys have put out, it’s been really good. So glad to chat with you today.

Christian: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. If you don’t mind, the biggest thing I’m proud of, or the biggest project I’m proud of, is Design Bestseller. That’s actually our Yeah, a client from day one on and we were starting with four people. They were starting with two people, and now we are having 20 people. They have 75 people. So we were starting with, I don’t know, it was about 20,000 bugs a month. And now they have about I don’t know, I think it’s one of 4 million a month, so. Wow. That’s just great for them. That’s great for us. Yeah. I mean, they, they, they grew a little bit faster as we, as scaling maybe is a little easier for merchants. But you know, scaling as an agency is always tough because where are all the developers getting developers? This is the only bad thing about Magento.

Brandon: That’s amazing. You know, to hear, like to hear that they’re and they’re still with you guys, right? I mean, from day one. And you’ve helped them grow and you’ve and you’ve I mean, that’s that says something about the you know, the quality of the relationships that you guys strive to build. So congratulations. Yeah.

Christian: Thank you.

Brandon: That’s great. Well, tell me a little bit more about  integer_net, you know, what are the things that kind of drive you? I mean, what gets you excited? You know what? What do the customers look like? That you’re ultimately trying to serve what you want to talk about.

Christian: So, to be honest, the internet was always the kind of nerdy company, the nerdy agency, let’s say. So, you know, we were when we started with four people, there were, you know, three and a half developers of the four. So I am the one half, which is, you know, let’s say project management doing the stuff around and the rest was, you know, backend developers, front end developers. So that’s why and actually, you know, very well educated developers. And that’s why our number one priority was always high quality because we had all the experience from our agencies we were working before and they were all fast, fast, fast a lot of things in a short amount of time, which leads to lots of errors. And you have to tell the client it is not working so well, but it works if you don’t look left and right. And that was something that was something we really didn’t like, you know? So we were never really the business driven agency, let’s say, who was running after every penny under each desk. We were more like, you know, helping grow, doing, doing good stuff of which you could be proud of. This is insurgent, actually. So I guess yeah. We’re not at a stock we would probably not be good there at, but we had lots of fun in the last ten years because it, you know, as I said, it’s fun. And what we are searching for regarding our merchants is we want an eye to eye relationship. Right. So, you know, we cannot work with someone who thinks, you know, we are the last bit of the chain, the in. And we just should do everything. Just give us some bread and some pizza and that’s it. No, that’s not how we work. We want to be in the team. We want to be, you know, eye to eye and want to help. But we also, of course, want the respect we deserve. Because if we understand the problem from the merchant we can help them even better. And Yeah, that’s what we aim to do.

Brandon: That’s great. Yeah. I mean, listen, there’s a lot of choices out there, right, in terms of developers and agencies and platforms for that matter. There’s just a lot of choices in terms of how you look at your business goals. And so I think, you know, your selection of Magento as a core technology lends very well to who you are as a company and how you embed yourself. And it’s really, you know, the success of that merchant is really the success of you. Right? And I love how you look at that. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, definitely. You know, so, you know, speaking a little bit about it, delight and what we’ve done with you guys. You know, I, you obviously chose us to support you a little bit within some, some projects. Can we talk about that just for a little bit maybe. What types of projects that it delight has helped you with and maybe what you’re, you know, just tell me a little bit about those projects.

Christian: Let me maybe understand why ITDelight is perfect. Maybe let me give you a little bit more of the context. Like I said, it’s always tough to get Magento developers, but at least we get to the point of 2020 developers or 2020 employees in the amount running through the time. But you know, when corona came, when the pandemic came the demand of some and especially designed by Stella but of some other merchants as well was skyrocketing. Right. So it was it. We couldn’t, we couldn’t, you know. Yeah. We could not compete with this demand and although we were a long time, we were thinking, no, no, it had to be our developers. We cannot be the agency who says, yeah, okay, we have a project manager. He is in Germany. And we give the whole project over to some guys in India or wherever. Yeah. This is not us. This. This would not work. And, you know, sometimes you have luck in your life, And we get to know Vlad. And Igor. And it was right. You know, they totally understood what we needed, and they totally understood how we click. You know, they they really say okay, these guys are you know, looking or aiming for for trust and quality, you know, our, our, our core values and and that’s, that’s why they, they, they give us the possibility to, to do the interviews and handpick the developers. And that’s, that’s the number one thing why we chose ITDelight because we have the possibility to, to pick them hand by hand and to do interviews. Lots and lots and lots of them. And or what we would, we didn’t have to actually do so much because, you know, the developers were quite good. 

Brandon: And that’s great. 

Christian: When you coming back to your initial question. What kind of projects we do with them? The cool thing is the guys we have from ITDelight. We don’t we don’t have to say, okay, this is the configurator guy. You can use them for 3D configuration or this is the backend guy you use for interface design. No, they’re good at everything. You know, we have a very wonderful backend developer here full time. We have a wonderful front end developer full time. And we, we throw them just at every project. Maybe not. Not sure. I didn’t mention it before. Like I said, we have a Design Bestseller from day one on so for more than ten years, but also other clients, we serve them for a long time. That’s our thing, you know, winning, winning a project and then serving them after the launch as long as we can. And that’s, that’s sometimes tough because, you know, if we have a project which, which grew in the, within time, you know, the first corpse is always documentation. That’s that from day one on.

Brandon: Yeah. That’s true.

Christian: And that’s why. And that’s why it’s always tough for a new developer to onboard him or her. But, you know, with the guys from it, like, it was no problem. We just throw them at this project or this project. It takes just a short amount of time and it all works, and that’s great. You know, the cool thing is that the guys from it delight. They are part of the family. And that feels good.

Brandon: Oh. That’s great. I mean, thanks for saying that. They I, I know having spoken with our team, you know, I know they get really excited about the projects that they work on. Right. And when they, when they take on a project, it’s as if it’s their own project store, you know, you name it, I think which really matches that kind of core value that you have. And they enjoy just just working with you on those projects and that type of thing. But I really liked what you said. I thought it was interesting, too. It’s you know, you’re you got the opportunity to, you know, I guess, interview and select those developers that you felt would be the best fit for both for you and for the clients that you were working on. Can you tell me about that process? And I guess, just maybe, what stood out more to you?

Christian: Yeah, definitely. Because the thing is being a good developer is just one part of the game, actually. It’s just one part of the story. I think I cannot say maybe. I think we did 1 or 2 interviews at first where we thought, okay, that guy really has the talent, the ability. But, you know, sometimes it’s a, it’s a it’s also the social fit is also very important. And as we were trying it was like and maybe also because we were new to the whole game, you know, we have to and now we are lucky we did that. But of course, for us it was also tough because we had to switch our company language from German to English. You know, telling all the employees now, sorry, guys, all the documentation or all the, the slack messages in open channels have to be in English now. So pretty tough for us as well. And that’s why, of course, we had to develop. We had to grow as well with those with this situation. But yeah, it was really like we were getting real CV’s as if we were getting Yeah. Appliance. From, from someone. So and we, we could, we could, you know, check check check, check every skill is there. But of course, we were doing an interview with Vlad and with the developer. Yeah. And then we could try it, you know, just try it in a project, do it for a few hours and see how it works? You know, we’re also always doing code reviews, so we could check his work quite quickly. For project managers, it was, of course, also important. How’s the communication, do they ask, are they waiting for tickets or for work? Or do they come to us and say, I need help? That’s all important. And you know, like in real life, when you hire full time employees, it’s just the same. You need a tryout phase. And yeah, it lets us do this and that. That’s pretty cool. And if we say, okay, this is not a good fit, we get an ex CV and we try it all over again. Unfortunately we didn’t have to do this so often. It was, I think, for the front-ends, it was already number two. We were picking and for, for the back end, I think it was number two or number three. I’m not sure I cannot say, but then of course, like I said, after that it was for us. Easy as well. You know, now the developers, we get after them, it was sometimes also a little bit easier for us because we were saying like okay, that guy is clicking like that because, you know, you get to know the kind of developers because I think it’s okay if for, say, it’s partly or they’re from the Ukraine, of course. And, and you kind of get to know the Ukrainian mentality which is very, very hard working. Very hard working.

Brandon: That’s right, I appreciate it, I mean, it’s part of what drove my interest in ITDelight. Right. Clearly I’m not from Ukraine. I’m from the States over here and focused on our, our Western expansion and some of the stuff we’re doing in the, in the United States and in Canada. And, and it’s been a lot of fun because it’s true. I can always count on them to be, I mean, just be super direct and very, very capable. Developers, I, I’ve worked with developers all over the world, and I think what most people don’t realize is the vast majority of what Magento is. And really, I would say what is ecommerce, what built ecommerce? Boy, a lot of that came from Ukraine and a lot of people don’t even know that.

Christian: So that’s unbelievable. Is it?

Brandon: It truly is.

Christian: It really is.

Brandon: And they and they’ve had some challenges and they’re kind of scattered all over the world at the moment, kind of joining the remote, the remote team efforts that we all seem to have nowadays. But yeah, never waver in all those projects. I’ve been super impressed. So I’m glad you saw the same thing.

Christian: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

Brandon: So a question for you then I guess, you know, you’ve got options, right. So you could go, you know, you could go anywhere. You could find another agency. You could quite frankly, you just hire internally, right? I mean, I’m sure you’d love to have another German speaking counterpart developer sitting right in the office with you. Yeah. So what would make you choose ITDelight again to work with?

Christian: Well, for one hand, I mean, it’s, you know, I’m CEO, so that’s why I’m more or less responsible for all parts of the company. And, you know, HR is a lot of work.

Brandon: It’s a ton of work.

Christian: You know, if I have to choose to do lots of campaigns to get, you know, a full time developer just here, right in my office with you know, in Germany, where we are looking for full time workers. Everyone’s doing that not only here in it, but everyone in every branch. And on the other hand, I have this endless pool of developers. Well, that’s my experience. I don’t know what’s behind this, to be honest. I don’t know how many employees ITDelight has, but if I say, oh, I might, I might need someone. It takes like, I don’t know, one hour and then I have five CVS on my desk. And that’s just, you know, I think that makes it easy. You know, it’s always the, what’s the word like? You know the barrier is so low that the question is more that you could ask me. Well, why, why would I not choose it like developers? That’s easier.

Brandon:  Well, there you go. Why would you not?

Christian:  Yeah. Well. I would just. It does not make sense because otherwise it does not make sense. It doesn’t pay off.

Brandon:  That’s right. Well, listen, I think you hit on it early on, right? So much I mean, you find great developers all over the place, but so much relies on how you work together and that synergy that you create. And we’ve worked together for a long time. So I, you know, it’s safe to say that that synergy has come a long way since day one.

Christian:  So. Yeah, definitely.

Christian: Oh that’s fantastic. Well, any advice? So if we were, if we were talking to maybe other agencies that are in your shoes and maybe merchants potentially, who are trying to work directly, who are struggling with some of those same types of hiring things and how they find the right agency and developers. Any suggestions or guidance that you would give to them as they go about making their decision?

Christian:  Don’t be afraid of the language barrier. Of course, at first it is a big leap, right? So you really have to jump over your shadow, as we say in Germany. But once you do that, you will find it all. It all pays off. Right? So if you have, we more or less have this same problem with, with, with some clients who also grow and they say, oh, now the internet is getting really, really expensive. So let’s try and hire some internal developers. And, you know, most of them just, you know, we are still working together because it you know, it doesn’t it doesn’t pay off, you know, and that’s the it’s the same when you, when you you know, want to hire someone from from Germany and try to get him from, I don’t know, fancy Berlin to some small village where you accidentally have your your shop in that’s very it’s either very expensive or it’s impossible. And, you know , that’s even harder than just hiring someone who does not speak the language. So of course it would be great if they could speak German, but it’s not that big of a deal. So my number one advice would be, don’t be afraid. They’ll make it work. Yeah.

Brandon: You know, I hear, in fact, so many times from a merchant perspective. You know, I in fact, I had a conversation the other day you know, not no two agencies. I mean, there’s, there’s challenges with some agencies out there, just like there are challenges with any business. And I think what the gal that I was speaking with had to talk about was how, how many agencies that they have tried and that agencies are not fully committed. Right. They don’t view themselves as part of the team. And they do some work. And of course, this merchant doesn’t have the ability to look at that work and say, that’s good code. That’s bad code. You know, you know Magento, you don’t know Magento. And that’s what they’re looking to hire. Any advice to those merchants that are out there listening on, you know, how they might identify the right kinds of agencies to work for or work with?

Christian: Yeah. So it’s more or less the same way, like I choose my clients. And I always say it’s vice versa. It’s not only that I choose my clients. That also they choose their, their, their solution partner. Right. And it doesn’t matter actually if they’re from, from Germany, Germany, UK, USA or Ukraine. It has to be a good fit in both directions. So that’s why I, I think. I mean it’s tough to foresee if this is a solution partner really working in your own interest? I would, I would put it the other way around. So because my credo does it, is it a word for you? My credo is if you, if the merchant earns more, I will earn more. So if you know, it does not make sense for me to just, you know, do the fire and forget things. Just put them in a shop and then bye bye and go away. That does not work because you know sales is tough and I’d rather like to do it just once and then you know, and the, and I think just give it a little bit of time when you from from merchant point of view, just give it a little bit of time, you will get to know pretty fast if the if the solution provider, if the developer is on your side and really wants to help you. This will come on its own, I think.

Brandon: I agree, and I think it’s you know, it is hard. You’re 100% right. Yeah. Well, listen, this has been fun, right? This is always a great conversation. I honestly, I was on your website earlier today, and I was just kind of looking around at, you know, what you’re doing, and I loved you have some banners right on there that talks about going slow to fast and taking complex and making it simple, right? And going from just being a business to to rock stars. Let me ask you this. What’s next for Integer? What do you see coming? What do you guys get excited about? And what should we all be kind of watching for on the horizon? Whether it relates to integer specifically or ecommerce in general.

Christian: A good question. Because, you know, we’re we’re we’re turning this world upside down. Well that’s right. Yeah. To be honest, of course, we’re a German agency, and we focus more or less 99% on the German market. And our B2C in the German market is quite tough. A lot of things have happened since the pandemic. And, you know, the market is I wouldn’t say it’s fed up, but, you know, a lot of, you know, it has to to you know, it has to we have to see how things work. So when you have a look at B2C we really will search our corner within Hoover, within superfast shops, within our knowledge of having, you know, ten years of Magento experience and knowing the system better than any other agency that’s the thing we did before. We are better now within Hyva and you know, our experience. But that’s number one. The bigger thing. The bigger thing where we will develop is where Germany is actually very bad because if you have a look at B2B to all the B2B companies here I would say like 70 to 80%, they are really not digitized. Right. So they still run around with pen and paper, they still run around with a lot of guys, sales guys driving within the car to any village and trying to get clients by just talking and reading

Brandon: To sales on the road. Yeah.

Christian: Yeah, definitely. And you know, this is changing. We have to change. We have to adapt. You know, it’s very tough. Like I said before, it’s very tough to get new employees, even for the B2B companies. It’s very tough. Because you know, the average age is really getting high. We know we have, you know, everyone’s going to Oh, sorry. Don’t have the word renter pension. Are they retired? You know a lot of people retire. So what can we do if we don’t have the staff? The staff. Right. We don’t have the staff. What do we do? And so we have to digitize and you know, we have a lot of experience in that we did some B2B cases before, not on purpose, but you know, they just came to us, but now we. Yeah, yeah, but now we will really, really attack those, those cases. We have a very great B2B based Magento based B2B suit, which is called proline. It’s even better than the Adobe B2B functionalities to be, to be honest, I’d say and, you know, we really will attack the market and, and go forward and for that, yeah, this will be fun. And for that we will need a lot of developers, I’m sure.

Brandon: Well, we stand ready to support wherever we possibly can. You know that. We look forward to it. I, I’ve actually had some great feedback around proline and what you’ve done and, and a lot of the B2B you know, B2B related shops. And I do think you’re right that that’ll be fun. So you’re, it’s safe to say you’re you you feel confident. Magento and what, what you can do within Magento for B2B is a great place for a B2B merchant to be.

Christian: Yeah, definitely. So like I said, the possibility Magento gives you the flexibility Magento gives you that’s so important for B2B. As I always say, the paradox of B2B e-commerce is that sales are sometimes not the most important thing in B2B. Sometimes it’s customer service, sometimes it’s just, you know, giving information to your clients. Just so giving him the ease to, to get information by not picking up the phone, but just, you know, searching through your shop. And of course we should. We should sell. Of course, the e-commerce shop is there for sale. But it does so much more. And that’s why, you know, they are way more complex than B2C shops. And this will be fun because this is challenging and this is fun for us, for developers because that’s what they, they are good at and what, what they like to do.

Brandon: That fits right. That fits the exact type of customer that integer serves best. And that we can dive in from the ITDelight side and support. Right? So I love it. I think it’s a great way to kind of wrap up and, and I’m going to be watching. I’m going to be watching what B2B sites come next from you guys. That’s exciting.

Christian: Thank you. 

Brandon: Yeah. Well, Christian, thanks for taking the time today. I know it’s late in your night at this point, but thank you for all of your efforts and keep up the great work.

Brandon: : You’re welcome. Brandon, thank you for having me. And Yeah, see you soon.

Brandon: See you.