Supporting a rapid-growth startup for velocity and geographic expansion

Following an acquisition in late 2020, Montreal-based PropTech startup Usewalter was eager to quickly improve their property management product offering. In an effort to increase development velocity and expand into new markets, they sought out to find a full-service partner to augment their internal team.

Usewalter chose us because of our expertise working with high-growth startups, as well as our deep technical know-how across the full stack. We were mandated with accelerating their development efforts, establishing a strong technical foundation on which their future in-house team could build upon, and redefining the entire product look and feel across all platforms.

We worked with key Usewalter stakeholders to identify high-impact features and improvements, and assigned a dedicated team to the project. Over the course of 6 months, we defined a new look and feel for the app, took the lead on development of these new key features, increased developer productivity through advanced tooling, and implemented an automated testing pipeline, all while bringing their newly hired developers up to speed.

• Comprehensive web platform redesign and code refactor
• Scalability and performance improvements (rate limiting, query cost calculation, centralized caching and worker node structure)
• Cross-platform real-time chat with rich functionality (read receipts, status indicator, contextual cards, timeline events)
• Task management system, overview dashboard, multi-class search, localization and internationalization
• Payment infrastructure to allow rent and condo fee processing
• Fully automated end-to-end testing pipeline
• Quick and modernized development, building, and deployment pipelines
• Complete mobile app design overhaul for iOS and Android

Following our engagement, Usewalter had grown to a technical team of ~15, now equipped with the necessary tools and resources to scale the platform. Key functionality had also been implemented and now considered core to their updated product offering, providing them with the extra firepower to enter new markets.

• Complete platform refactor in just 6 months
• Significant increase in development velocity with improved developer experience (DX)
• 60% increase in in-app conversations between residents and managers
• Issues raised by residents resolved on average 40% faster
• 45% decrease in user reported bugs and errors