The Client and their Problem
An Israeli company in the CRM realm approached us with a challenge: "We want to package an SDK so our customers can create extensions to our product. R&D doesn't like this and if the technical writer doesn't get it right, they won't cooperate.We have two customers ready to pay $150,000 for the SDK. Can you help?"
This is the story. The base product is written in C# and interacts with Windows applications and browser-based applications. To make sure our client got no flack from R&D we brought in a team consisting of one of our most technically savvy technical writers (let's call him Baruch) and a 25-year old .NET expert with a pony tail and an earring (let's call him Eyal).
How JBS Approached the Challenge
It was about ten minutes into the first meeting with the client that it became clear to all that R&D would cooperate fully with the SDK project. The JBS Senior Technical Writer mapped out the Development Workflow on the white board while Eyal made suggestions about what he would need if he were a 3rd party developer working with this environment (for example, it would be nice to have a stub so I can compile and test even without a full system set-up).
Earning the confidence and trust of the engineers is only a tactical accomplishment. What is more important is that having our .NET expert, Eyal involved meant that we could provide:
- A resource for our technical writer to get explanations from when the client's developers were busy with other tasks
- Code samples that were packaged into the SDK
- Feedback on bugs and counter-intuitive behavior in the development kit
The Bottom Line
Our client delivered the SDK on-time, got the $300K and is now getting feedback from customers and planning a full road-map for this new product.