Boltmade's ideal customers are early-stage companies and larger, innovative solution providers and enterprises with ideas for new technical projects. "It could be for web, cloud or mobile apps that they want a partner to co-innovate with."

They're willing to help at any level. "We'll even train your developers or help you hire," but he doesn't want Boltmade to be thought of as simply a contract developer. "We can't position against Ukrainian outsourcing. We're less about programing and more about execution. During the life of a project, requirements are shifting, designs are shifting, everything is shifting, especially the market. So we think of ourselves as special forces, not as someone helping to raise an army."

SponsorsOne <http://sponsorsone.com/> engaged Boltmade in January to help build out its social sponsorship and commerce platform. SponsorsOne connects social media users with brands willing to sponsor them for discounts, special promotions and cash.

It's a 12-month project being built with Ruby on Rails. "Our organization has Ruby skills but limited resources and [lacks] advanced programming skills," said Seth Brouwers, COO of the Waterloo-based company. The company also was having difficulty finding qualified Ruby developers to hire, so they started looking at outsourcing.

"The Boltmade partnership provides the additional development resources and expertise we require," Brouwers said.

In addition to Ruby On Rails, which Murphy refers to as the company's "de facto web stack," Boltmade also is versed in Java, JavaScript, HTML5 + CSS, the Node.js server-side JavaScript framework, and Haskell, a backend for mobile devices. The company also builds apps for Android and iOS devices.

Most projects combine two developers at the client site with two at Boltmade. "We usually start out with a designer and a developer, or with two designers if it's a heavy project," said Murphy, adding that one of the designers will eventually "fade out" and be replaced by a second developer.

The two-person team is critical on each side because "the two geek each other to keep from going off track," Murphy said.

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