How to successfully partner with Europe: CleanCapital example
Interview with the CTO Marc Garrett
The following is an interview with the CleanCapital’s CTO Marc Garrett about why they partnered with Europe for the development of their clean energy investment platform and what were the results.
Why did you partner with an outside team in the first place?
That’s easy — looking at the scale of goals and the tight timeline for delivery we came to the conclusion that partnering on the development of our investment and diligence platform was the most time-efficient and cost-effective route to take.
All of our team members have enough work on their hands already. Over time, we’ll hire more engineers in house to work alongside our European team, but to build a clean energy investment platform quickly we needed to think creatively about our staffing.
Why Europe? Isn’t there a huge time difference?
First of all, we were looking for a company that’s using Python programming language in their work since Python is the only language with a broad reach in the Internet of Things, data science, and web application development. We chose to go with Thorgate from Tallinn, Estonia. Heard a lot of good things about Estonia. Skype was built there. And Thorgate had already built at least one clean energy project.
The time difference isn’t a problem at all. When it’s 8 AM at the East Coast it’s 3 PM in Estonia. We had the product development discussions in the morning, so we never have to deal with those things during the other part of the day. It’s a good way to jump start our daily tasks.
Also talking about getting work done while you sleep — thanks to the time difference exactly that happened. Most of the development was done while I was still sleeping.
What’s the reality of outsourcing — the good and the bad?
There’s no downside to partnering as long as you understand the role of each team. You really need to have your own product manager on staff, who can work directly with business stakeholders and the people who will use your platform. It’s my job at CleanCapital to translate business needs into technical requirements. You can’t count on your engineering partner to understand your business as well as you do.
But you can expect your engineering partner to internalize and understand the personas you develop, and to give you critical feedback on platform functionality and your technical approach. I’ve had outsourcing relationships that suffer from the “magic genie” culture — they’ll give you exactly what you ask for. But you wouldn’t want an employee who works like that, and you don’t want a partner who works like that either. If a Thorgate tech lead disagrees with a technical suggestion, or if we’ve overlooked a critical feature, he’ll speak up. That kind of feedback is essential.
What would you do differently next time?
I’d go to Estonia! To solidify a long term relationship you should eventually meet face to face, and I plan to go to Tallinn in 2019.
Any last tips for someone looking to outsource their own design and development?
My first tip would be to really consider what you need. Do you need a soldier to follow orders or do you need a partner to think and plan with you? We were looking for a development partner and we found that in Thorgate.
When looking for a good partner, I suggest researching their background and checking the work they’ve done before. Talk to their clients. Talk directly to their senior team: were they founded by a coder? Is their business viable? This should give you an adequate picture of their skillset.
Lastly, don’t be afraid to bring your projects to Europe. In the end, it doesn’t really matter. The discussions we’ve had online have always been productive and constructive. You should also take into account the fact that European prices are half of that here in the US. Half the price but not half the quality.
