Gifted entered the growth phase in just 5 years, cutting engineering costs by 75%

After achieving a product market fit, Gifted, an early-stage startup, was looking to expand to the US. To support their growth, they needed to revamp their legacy gifting platform. They referred to KPS for help.

THE CHALLENGE

Gifted wanted to expand to the US market but its legacy product had to be revamped

After their product had succeeded in Israel, Gifted founders recognized the potential to reach a much larger client base, so they decided to launch a new project in the US. Just as they were making this move, the pandemic hit. Gifted had to rapidly enhance their product and build a team, all during the full lockdown.

In 2019, looking to take their healthcare product further, BetterCare joined forces with KPS. When we entered the project, we found a tough-to-maintain legacy codebase. Rewriting it from scratch wasn’t an option because of tight timelines and commitments to existing clients. We decided to refactor the existing code, without making any major changes to the technology stack.

Gifted had two in-house employees working on the solution in Israel, but they were missing an experienced CTO. Bringing in the right experts to fill the tech gaps was too expensive, which slowed down product development. On top of that, the existing developers weren't meeting the founders' expectations.

The existing interface didn’t allow end-users to set up gifting campaigns independently, forcing them to reach out to the support team for help.

THE PROCESS

How we helped Gifted enhance the platform and build an expert team

We started on a Time & Material basis, kicking off the project by solving urgent tasks and adding new features to the Gifted platform.

We had to build a new core feature that would automate the user flow, but Ember.js was too outdated to support scalability. Rewriting the entire platform would have taken too long, so our CTO decided to build the new functionality using Vue.js and integrate it seamlessly with the existing platform.

Gifted's cloud computing costs had soared significantly, making them unsustainable for the early-stage startup. We jumped in and ran an audit of their cloud services. We identified and deactivated unused services, overhauled their backup strategy, and right-sized their resources. By selecting optimal storage solutions and implementing a smarter backup approach, we reduced their monthly cloud costs by more than half.

When we came on board, the plan was for us to help speed up the project. But after a few months, Gifted saw how well our team was performing and decided to make us their primary development team. They switched to a Dedicated Team model, which was more cost-effective for a long-term partnership.

The client base of Gifted quickly grew but part of the customers required ISO compliance. To meet their demands, we helped Gifted follow expert guidelines and successfully acquire ISO certification.

Gifted doesn’t store customers' credit card information, but they could still be targeted by attacks aimed at stealing gift cards and certificates generated on the platform. To minimize any security risks, we helped Gifted conduct a thorough security check and address any vulnerabilities that were identified, ensuring their platform remained secure.

When the pandemic hit, the restaurant industry was affected especially hard, and Gifted decided to step in and help businesses by offering gift card tools integrated with their platform. Our team built a proof of concept (PoC) for Gifted's merchants in just 1.5 months. This PoC was a success and eventually evolved into a fully functioning React Native app, which was embraced by other Gifted merchants.

Gifted doesn't need a full-time DevOps expert, but we provide support as needed—managing staging environments, addressing vulnerabilities, and ensuring platform reliability—without the cost and commitment of a permanent hire.

THE RESULT

With KPS’ technical consultancy, project management, and team hiring, Gifted successfully expanded to the US and even further, attracting more than 4K clients and 9K merchants.

With KPS, Gifted managed to grow their development team from two developers to a full team of 13 experts. They also use our PM-as-a-service and CTO-as-a-service, securing major cost savings and getting senior-level talent at rates usually reserved for junior or trainee positions.
If Gifted had hired in-house talent in the US, the team of a similar structure would have cost them around $1.5M annually. By partnering with KPS, they save nearly 75% annually.