Shake helps StartEngine work through releases and development more efficiently.

StartEngine is an equity crowdfunding platform based in the US that allows everyday people to invest and own shares in startups and early-stage companies. Their platform is useful to founders and startups looking for funding in order to grow their businesses. So far, StartEngine has raised over $350 million and has funded over 500 offerings.

We spoke with Principal Software Engineer Cameron Ehlrich about how Shake SDK helped them work through releases and development more efficiently.

StartEngine was looking to change their workflow and also wanted to:

StartEngine had previously been using a competitor and was looking for a competing product that would cost them less and give them a better service.

Price was a massive factor, and Cameron stresses that they weren’t getting value for the product they were using. One thing they also felt was that the support they received from the competitor was not up to par – when compared to the onboarding and ongoing support they get from Shake’s Customer Support team.

Since using Shake, StartEngine have used their workspace to have all their feedback from production and test environment apps in one place. 

On this subject, Cameron looks back on Shake’s implementation:

“It was straightforward to install and implement.”

StartEngine decided it was best to Shake for edge cases that they often wouldn’t even look for in testing. Cameron describes how users will “report a bug that was specific to personalized aspects of their app” that they “otherwise wouldn’t see”.

As these cases were often non-fatal, Shake’s detailed logs and automatically attached screenshots helped Cameron and his team identify and reproduce these issues. 

Cameron also describes how much Shake has helped his team improve efficiency, by allowing users to make reports via a button in their app:

“We released at 8AM and by 10AM we had a report ping on Slack to say that the balance of a ‘Portfolio’ was wrong. I was able to open the report, look at the logs, reproduce the error and have a new version out by 1PM”.

Shake’s detailed logs and clear feedback details mean that reproducing an issue can be done in minutes, as opposed to the back-and-forth, and long-winded experience that can happen when bug fixing without a tool. 

StartEngine has been able to improve long-term efficiency, by using Shake to resolve bugs. Overall, they make new releases every two weeks, and rather than backlog issues that come up between releases – Shake has allowed StartEngine to address the issue straight away.

Cameron notes that: “Shake’s a great tool for a real-time ear to the ground.”

In the past, this would’ve meant bugs and other issues would be triaged via email, added to a backlog, and probably addressed further down the line. By addressing issues immediately, using Shake, StartEngine has been able to focus on the stuff that matters most.

Cameron says he loves working with Shake and really looks forward to using Shake in Web apps in the future.