How an award-winning digital agency leveraged Pythagora
to improve their productivity

Who is Colorado Digital?

Colorado Digital, originally known as Denverdata Web, was founded by Tom DeGerlia, whose early passion for computers led him from a career in chemistry to pioneering in the digital space. Established in 1998 in Denver, Colorado, the company arose from Tom's vision to deliver superior software and database solutions, focusing on sectors such as aviation and image technology.

Overcoming challenges like the Y2K era, Colorado Digital has evolved alongside the web, adapting and expanding its services to include web development, web-based applications, and search engine optimization. The company prides itself on being a problem solver that translates customer goals into technical solutions, adhering to the philosophy of helping non-technical people achieve their technical aspirations.

The firm's dedication to innovation and customer success has garnered it significant recognition, including multiple awards that underscore its commitment to excellence and its role as an industry leader. Colorado Digital remains at the forefront of the digital industry, continually enhancing its offerings to meet the dynamic needs of the market.

The Story

Discovery of Pythagora

Tom Delia from Colorado Digital stumbled upon the Pythagora VSCode plugin while watching a YouTube video where Matthew Berman was talking about its benefits. Intrigued by its potential, Tom and his team explored how Pythagora could integrate the roles of developers, architects, and project managers into a single tool. After testing it and seeing how well it aligned with their workflows, they decided to adopt it, anticipating smoother and more coordinated software development.

Implementation of Pythagora

The integration of Pythagora at Colorado Digital began with applying the plugin to internal projects. As Justin Goldman mentioned, the tool was used daily in their development processes, such as the WordPress Procurement RFP system and a client-facing form builder. These projects benefited from reduced manual effort and accelerated feature development.

While starting to use Pythagora on client projects, the team faced a learning curve. Tom Delia highlighted the initial challenges and the ongoing process of mastering Pythagora's AI components to fully utilize its potential. This phase involved integrating the tool into their workflow, ensuring it effectively supported their project management and development needs.

Roles played by Pythagora

Developer: Pythagora acts like a proactive coding partner. It doesn’t just write code; it also runs and reviews it, checks for errors, and debugs alongside the user. This allows developers to focus on creative problem-solving rather than routine tasks.

Architect: Pythagora determines the best technologies for a project based on the application’s requirements. It analyzes project needs to design a robust and scalable architecture, selecting tools and technologies that support both current and future growth.

Product Owner: Pythagora steps in as a detail-oriented product owner, helping draft complete tech specs and prompting users to fill in any overlooked gaps. This ensures a clear, prioritized backlog aligned with strategic goals.

Tech Lead: Acting as a tech lead, Pythagora ensures adherence to best practices and high code quality. It guides the team through technical challenges and fosters an environment of continuous learning and improvement.

Creating a new software solution from scratch

Connecting to an existing custom-built REST API service for document management

User authentication flow using AWS Cognito

Display, management, and editing of complex structured documents

Real-time WYSIWYG edit/preview using a heavily-customized open-source component

Testimonials

Justin Goldman:

"It has definitely sped up development in many, many ways, from planning to implementation. Really just knowing what you need to implement, typing it out, and then the GPT pilot does the rest."

Tom Delia:

"It actually turned out very quickly to be completely different from everything else we'd looked at, taking a pretty novel approach of really looking at the architecture at a high level. Specific project requirements involved heavy modification of available UI components, a task that would previously require an expert developer specializing in the niche."

Backed by

Combinator