At the core of Wela
The development of Wela is still ongoing. They’re now monolithic, but as the platform grows it will be divided into several distinct services for different purposes. They have a fully API-driven architecture. The stack includes PHP, Angular 6, and MySQL for data storage. The full solution is hosted on Amazon AWS.
Integrations
The platform integrates with Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Junxure, and the major custodians such as Schwab and Fidelity, and they are planning to integrate soon with Wealthbox, Black Diamond, and Redtail.
Matt: “Benjamin is to be a consistent common language across all the different software, spur actions, and enhance efficiency while providing service to the clients.”
At Wela, they don’t provide any in-house financial planning or risk-profiling tools. For each client they have custom questionnaires, while Benjamin provides answers at any convenient time via text message.
Team and product management
Wela is striving to deliver a highly demanded product. That’s why they are very tactical in terms of implementing new features to the product.
Hesom: “What we don’t want to do is spend a year building out the solution that you take to a marketplace and no one wants. We want to be very nimble, very agile, and building out this or that feature. We’re going to the clients and actually testing with them.”
Wela is an Agile team running two-week sprints. There are seven people, with Hesom taking the lead as the chief architect. The developers have full-stack qualifications with a shift to this or that side of development, while still being able to interchange. Also, they have external resources that help them with the development, if necessary. The key differentiator for them is a video production team that creates digital content to send out to prospects.
Knowledge transfer
When a new project comes in, they explain to the team why they’re doing what they’re doing.
Matt: “What’s the benefit? What’s the value we’re trying to provide? How does this work with an industry? All that is explained to all segments of the team, from marketing to developers.”
Matt says it’s done not at a formal meeting but via digital tools, or can be written up within the ticket so that the developers understand why their work is going to be impactful to the company’s overall vision.