Industry: Software Development, Mobile Development

JetBrains products used: Space

Organization Size: 25

Country: International

Makery

Makery delivers end-to-end digital services. The company was founded just over five years ago with the mission of creating innovative solutions in areas related to e-mobility, health, and well-being. Makery works closely with industry leaders at all stages of product development, from ideas, research, and planning, through to design, architecture, implementation, publishing, release, and maintenance.

“Rather than using a multitude of individual tools, we’ve always preferred integrated environments. We started looking for a new digital home, and when we heard about Space at KotlinConf, we really liked the concept. So we decided to sign up.”

— Andras Kindler, Co-Founder, Makery

Personal information

Balazs Zsedely, Gyula Voros, and Andras Kindler are the three founders of Makery.

  • Balazs Zsedely – focuses on strategy and marketing
  • Gyula Voros – focuses on technology and engineering
  • Andras Kindler – focuses on sales, projects, and the community

Company information

We deliver end-to-end digital services. We work with our partners on all phases of product development, from ideas, research, and planning, through design, architecture, and implementation, to publishing, release, and maintenance. We operate globally, helping to develop innovative solutions, for example, in the fields of mobility and health & wellbeing.

What JetBrains product(s) do you use in your company?

Kotlin is widely used for Android and backend development at Makery. We also organize meetups and the Kotliners conference as an official community partner of JetBrains. We use multiple JetBrains products: IntelliJ IDEA, Android Studio, and DataGrip. We also have experience with YouTrack and Upsource, which is what led us to Space.


Challenges before adopting Space

What made you look for Space or alternative solutions?

Rather than using a multitude of individual tools, we’ve always preferred integrated environments. We started looking for a new digital home, and when we heard about Space at KotlinConf, we really liked the concept. So we decided to sign up.

Are there any alternative solutions you thought of opting for instead of Space?

Before signing up for Space, we had used Trello, Asana, and YouTrack, but none of them was “integrated” enough for us – we always needed a complementary tool (eg. to provide chats, wikis, message boards, etc.).

How was your collaboration process organised before? Which areas or steps of your process were missing/challenging/problematic? Were these problems related to changes in your business or company transformation (for example, rapid growth)?

We settled down in Basecamp, and enjoyed using it for quite some time. But as we progressed as a company, we found that it was evolving more slowly than we had expected and we started to feel like we had outgrown it.

In general, the areas of issue management, project hierarchy, and calendars are the most difficult to get right. In the tools we used, we almost always found these to be a bottleneck for productivity.


Why Space?

Why did your team decide to use Space?

We were looking for an integrated environment to be a new digital home for us that could seamlessly manage everything in one place. We learned about Space at KotlinConf 2019, and its concept resonated with us. Since we’re quite content with JetBrains tools, we decided to try Space as well. And we’ve been using it as our main tool ever since. Even though it was an EAP (now beta) with known issues and missing features, we adopted it, and we love using it in our daily lives.

What are the key benefits you get from using it?

The main benefits for us:

  1. There is no need to switch tools since everything is in one place, which helps us easily get a good overview of the entire company.
  2. Referencing by linking topics and issues is easy and helps us keep conversations on track.
  3. We usually kick-off a project and start with high-level planning with the help of checklists. As the projects evolve, we add details to these checklist items and convert them into issues.
  4. The integrated code reviews are also great. We can easily get the right people involved at any point in the discussion.
  5. Blog posts also work great for us. We use them for company-wide announcements and events.

Feedback

Describe your experience during the adoption period: was it hard to get used to?

First, right after KotlinConf, the three of us did a closed test-run to evaluate Space. This went well, so we onboarded the team during an all-hands meeting where we went through all of Space’s features. We then did a test-run as a company, using Space and another product in parallel for about 1.5 months. Once we felt that we were reflexively using Space instead of the other product, we shut the latter down and started using Space exclusively.

Would you like to learn more about the features that Space is equipped with?

When it comes to Space’s educational material, the blog posts work great for us. We’re also members of the space-insiders channel, which is also a good resource, and we regularly submit issues to the tracker.

Contacts

Yes, please feel free to get in touch with us at andras@makery.co

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