Case Study

Builtfirst Logo
Builtfirst Marketplace

Launch your marketplace in minutes

B2B
Cloud Marketplace Platform
Web App

The Project

Builtfirst is a cloud marketplace platform that , makes it easy to create any B2B marketplace to promote your SaaS or service partners (e.g.., deal, integration, or service marketplaces). Procurement is hastened when customers discover SaaS or services where trust has already been built, such as their bank, venture capital firm, or existing software providers. GoGrow has helped Builtfirst from the ground up. We’ve aided them in overcoming technical challenges during growth, hiring engineering leadership, and scaling their development team with the highest-quality developers.

It's more than a product.
It's a mission.

Simply put, Builtfirst makes it effortless to be a good partner. From day one, Michael and Aaron have been motivated to lower the barrier of entry for new companies to launch their partnership teams. In the process, their deal marketplaces have saved founders millions , not counting all the heartache, time, and effort that they’ve saved.

The Challenges

The first challenge was learning what the leadership team wanted to build. This changed very often over the first year and a half.  Even with these struggles to find product market fit, we were able to help them staff up and down as needed. We also helped them implement their application to gain insights from their customers. Over time, they found their niche and we were off to the races.
Builtfirst First Version
Aaron Bailey and Michael Julve
The next challenge was scale. We needed to keep up with Builtfirst’s demands as they grew. This meant ramping up the development team from 3 to 10 developers in three weeks! We were also able to help the Builtfirst team to onboard their first Head of Engineering, product manager, and designer.
Aaron Bailey and Michael Julve
GoGrow and Builtfirst teams

One of our longest
running customers.

Builfirst was among our first customers when GoGrow opened its doors. After three years, we are still going strong and staffing up their engineering team. We’re connected to their product owners via Slack, email, and video conferences. Outside of our combined work efforts, our teams love hanging out and getting to know each other!

Frontend Development

GoGrow developed and deployed a variety of interactive features, including search and filtering options, user dashboards, and product displays. It also optimized, performance and scalability through effective caching and data management strategies. Through these efforts, the front-end team was instrumental in establishing Builtfirst as a robust, user-friendly, and highly competitive platform within the B2B marketplace ecosystem.
4 Developers
+ 10,000 Lines of code
ReactNextjs

Backend Development

Using Ruby and Ruby on Rails, we created a flexible and efficient web application framework that enabled us to build and deploy complex features with ease. PostgreSQL provided a robust and scalable database management system, allowing us to manage large volumes of data and ensure data integrity and consistency. We also used Redis for caching and data storage, allowing us to optimize performance and reduce server load.
4 Developers
+ 10,000 Lines of code
ReactRuby on Rails

Quality Assurance

We determined the critical paths, built test sets, and established regression times to guarantee user satisfaction. We automated this process using the Robot Framework, and integrated it into a pipeline using Jenkins and an AWS EC2 server, ensuring stability before production releases. This approach resolved QA issues and established a reliable marketplace for Builtfirst's users.
2 Engineers
+ 10,000 Lines of code
JenkinsAWS
A Builtfirst's marketplace
A Builtfirst's marketplace
A Builtfirst's marketplace

Highlights

Prototype Development

We've helped Builtfirst build their first products. Furthermore, we've helped the product owners know what they need to pivot and find their strongest market fit.

Scaling Engineering Team

We more than tripled their team size in less than three weeks, using quality developers who were able to immediately drive results for Builtfirst.

Leadership Recruitment

We've helped Builtfirst grow their engineering capacity and scale the team. We also helped them onboard a Head of Engineering who has super-powered their growth.

Long-term Relationship

A relationship through all the ups and downs of building an enduring business over a three-year period, which has driven us together into a tight-knit collaboration.
German Santillan

Germán Santillán

QA Engineer at GoGrow
"Builtfirst presented me with an incredible opportunity to engage with marketplaces that were undergoing constant change and configurable. As the QA lead, I had many opportunities to apply my extensive expertise in quality assurance, from analysis to automation."

The Result

TechCrunch

Showcased in TechCrunch

Highlighted in Business Insider

Business Insider

Raised over $3.6 million in Seed Funding

Our client's review

"We were looking for a functional platform at a rate that we could afford, and we got both. We also got a team we could count on as we grew."
David Heimbuch
Michael A. Julve
Founder at Builtfirst
Clutch 5 stars

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