Codeleap レビュー 

In 2020 I used Codeleap for an app idea I had whilst the company consisted of just Kamil (Ryszkowski) and Victor (Gimael). Over the course of '20/21 the app was built and I was impressed with the communication, quality of work, responsiveness, planning, documentation, etc. At the latter part of the Project Kamil left CodeLeap to presumably pursue other interests.

For context, the app work utilised 66 development days, at a cost of ~£28,000. I then decided to build a website to complement the app, continuing to use Codeleap. The reasonable assumption would be that the website would take as long as the app to develop - in fact it should have been far less as the bulk of the back end e.g. database schema, screens, etc had already been built. Unfortunately, this is where things started to go wrong, with imo Kamil's departure a large factor.

I presumed (ignorantly) that Victor would use the app as a base for the website - both were after all intended to work together. For reasons unknown, and in hindsight and what I can only put down to a deliberate attempt to derive more development days, CodeLeap:

- built the website from scratch, instead of using the app's database model
- did not provide a beta website for 8 months despite several requests
- added unwanted (& non-working) features
- ignored four requests (two in person, two by email) to focus on specific items
-did not provide a basic monthly progress plan/roadmap
- did not log requests send by email/discussed in person.

There was not even standard follow-ups to meetings (that I had requested), to confirm what was to be worked on. Whilst I initially put this down to incompetence, in hindsight I believe this was deliberate, with no transparency on the work nor what I was paying for e.g. a set of icons were designed despite me providing them upfront, an unrequested nor required 'title page', etc.

After 8 months I was finally presented with a 'beta' website - the quality was awful, with no working features, completely veered from what I had requested, and the app was rendered useless as the db model was not in sync. The end cost of the web piece was £54,700 (138 dev days). I subsequently terminated the contract, and relayed to Victor the reasons for such.

We tried to discuss a solution going forward over my dissatisfaction over the Project - during this discussion phase, whilst I acknowledge that the contract had ended, I considered the service very poor, with replies to emails coming a month or two later. Asking why the website was not compatible with the app was met with a shrug of the shoulders. I was subsequently offered partial corrective work at a '50% discount', and then for nothing after I mentioned that the best way to satisfy the disagreement was to do so in Court, as per the Contract.

However, during the latter discussion Victor blatantly lied stating that '..in our meetings I did ask whether you wanted a roadmap, but you said it was not needed.' Logically this made no sense - why would anyone not want to know where £4,000 monthly project development costs were being spent, or the Project progressing? This false statement was subsequently repeated a couple of times.

This put a completely different perspective on things, and made me question CodeLeap's integrity as well as why:

- a monthly roadmap/plan was never provided
- my requests to focus on certain areas were consistently ignored
-no follow-up notes were made to meetings
etc

...in fact, the complete opposite to how the earlier app work was performed.

Of course, the above is from my perspective only, and Victor has his side - for example he vaguely stated that my development requests were not clear (despite being stated verbally and in writing numerous times) - if they were not clear:
1. why were they not questioned
2. why were they worked on regardless, &
3. why were monthly updates not provided?

I asked CodeLeap to remove my referral from their site but they continued to place it, hence this review.

I also noted that CodeLeap's Ltd Co address is a virtual office, making it difficult (but not impossible) to submit legal documents/action.

In his reply to this review I note that Victor stated 'we approached both phases with the same care and process that had worked so well before' which unfortunately is 100% incorrect - unlike the 1st (app) phase, the 2nd (website) phase had no monthly roadmap/development plan, beta site (for constant review), meetings follow-ups, etc. In response to how it's a shame how the relationship ended, when there's no integrity or trust, that shouldn't be a surprise. To this day I have had no breakdown on how the 138 dev days were spent.

There was one silver lining - I found another Brazilian co to complete the work, who charge me £200 per day (in line with offshore development rates) that I'm very happy with.