3Advance

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of Fanamana, which is an in-game fantasy experience like DraftKings, but is happens live, while the game is on. We take live feeds from baseball games and mash them up in a mobile app so that people can draft a fantasy sports team while the game is on and play a contest for real money.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with 3Advance?

I came up with the idea for the app in 2013, and I was surprised to find that no one was doing it already. I decided to do it myself, but I needed a developer to actually create the app.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We basically built an MVP [minimum viable product] to prove that the game could work. We actually took the major league baseball’s XML feed, kind of hacked through it, and found a cheap way to build the MVP so it worked really well. From there, we hired 3Advance to build the full iOS and Android app, which we did sequentially in 2014 and 2015. He did the backend design in-house and farmed out the frontend to this guy, Joe, who I didn’t have a ton of involvement with. Since then, he’s brought on a frontend developer, but at the time he farmed that out.

In terms of resources, it is possible there was five or six, or maybe even seven people who touched it over the process. We communicated mostly over Slack, which might not work for all clients but was great for me. Because of the unique legal situation of fantasy sports apps, we’re currently working with 3Advance to implement third-party verification and geolocation to make sure that our users are over 18 and in states where we’re licensed to operate.

How did you come to work with 3Advance?

Paul [Principal, 3Advance] submitted a formal proposal, and we’ve been working together since the very beginning.

How much have you invested with 3Advance?

During the 3 years or more that we’ve been working together, I think we’ve invested $200,000 to $300,000.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We’re at about 4,000 active users right now, which is pretty low. We’re in a pretty weird situation that has nothing to do with Paul, but more to do with the business model. There have been some lawsuits in the fantasy sports world where last year we had to pull out of the play store and stuff. There was legislation in New York that was pending. So we kind of didn’t grow a lot last year, but it had nothing to do with him and everything to do with the business model. I handle the regulatory aspects and they handle the technical compliance with it.

How did 3Advance perform from a project management standpoint?

In terms of project management, we used Slack to communicate most of the time, as well as GitHub to log and address issues that came up.

What did you find most impressive about 3Advance?

One great aspect of working with 3Advance was that they were local. I work a lot with offshore contractors, and it’s so nice to have someone who’s local and speaks fluent English. The best part about 3Advance, though, is that they’re a bunch of guys—and Chloe—who really love what they do. Paul looks for projects that are going to be fun for him, and it shows. They’re really good at it. They’re having fun with the work, so they attack problems in lots of different ways.

Are there any areas 3Advance could improve?

They’ve gotten better over the years, but they sometimes went down rabbit holes or spent a lot of time on something that they shouldn’t have. One example is that they spent a really long time trying to deal with the internal linking of the app and social sharing, and they could have much more easily bought some third-party code and saved a lot of time. But it’s all because they’re really passionate about the work, so I get it.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of HSA Coach, which is focused on financial wellness for the individual consumer. HSAs are health savings accounts, sort of like 401ks or IRAs, and they can be fairly complicated for most people. So, we created an app that would allow people to keep track of their medical spending and their benefits. The app would also educate them on the nature of their plan.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with 3Advance?

There were three key features that we wanted to be implemented in our iOS and Android apps. First, we wanted DropBox connectivity so that users can take photos of their receipt, save them on the app, and then back them up to their personal DropBox accounts. Second, we needed to make the complicated and wonkish world of HSA policy more accessible, so we wanted to develop a cartoon character that would walk the user through their plans. Therefore, we needed our developer to have a very high degree of graphics expertise. Third, we wanted to have some benefits calculators embedded in the app that users could access as they did their annual planning.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

3Advance started by building a demo app or a proof of concept for both iOS and Android. They then built and enhanced the main product going forward. They have about seven people available to us, including designers, developers, and projects leads.

How did you come to work with 3Advance?

We found them through a referral. Out of all the other groups we looked at, 3Advance demonstrated not only collaboration and expertise but also real enthusiasm for the project. That was why we chose them. Fundamentally, we’re not just writing code—we’re tackling the issue of rising healthcare costs in our country. Paul and his team embraced not only our project but also our mission.

How much have you invested with 3Advance?

I would say we’ve spent about $300,000 or so on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in September of 2014. The arrangement is ongoing; these projects are never really over.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

They have delivered and then some based on what I thought was realistic. Because our product is an app, the main metric we use is ranking in the App Store’s algorithm. Depending on your search terms, we’re consistently around four or five, and we’ve gotten as high as number two. We have a 4.5-star rating and we average about ten downloads per week. That is fine for us because as a free app, our viability isn’t dependent on the number of users we have at any given time.

How did 3Advance perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very responsive. Ultimately, I believe that you get out of these arrangements what you put into them, so we work hard to be clear about what we want. We don’t change our plans at the last minute. Because of that, we’ve gotten much further down the path than we otherwise would have. Part of this relationship was about dreaming big, so sometimes when we ran into hurdles and things slipped.

What did you find most impressive about 3Advance?

The greatest benefit of working with 3Advance is that they were working on a number of projects for a number of clients. That meant they had a broad base of solutions that they could draw from. They would suggest directions for us to go that I'd never even considered; my role in many ways was just to let them go.

Are there any areas 3Advance could improve?

The only area for improvement is kind of a strength in its own right. They’re a small, outsourced developer shop, so they don’t have the big internal processes to keep on top of everything. While that means we can move faster without all that bureaucracy, it also means that you sometimes have to follow up with them and make sure they’re on the ball. It’s never been a real issue, though. They’ve struck a good balance.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with 3Advance?

This is going to sound mundane, but they get most excited about solving problems. I think most developers like to work in that space anyway, not being told how to write their code but rather being asked to solve problems at a higher level.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the executive vice president for a national nonprofit working in the domestic violence field. We support the state-level coalitions (umbrella organizations), and we also house signature projects such as technology, economic justice, housing, HIV, public policy, and other topics.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with 3Advance?

We applied for a grant with the Department of Justice’s Office on Victims of Crime in April of 2014. This grant was for the creation of a nationally scoped smartphone app that would provide vital information to counselors and victims of domestic violence. We wanted the app to help victims get answers to questions like, “What do I do if my ex is tracking me with my GPS?” or “What if my stalker is reading my emails?” Because we’re focused on privacy and safety, we’re pretty particular as a customer.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We needed to have fairly detailed specs in order to submit the grant application, so 3Advance worked with us to write the grant before we even knew if we would get the money to be able to pay them. Once we got the funding, we had a project kick-off meeting where our teams met and got on the same page in terms of envisioning the content we wanted to put on the app. Then my team had to go off and really figure that out the specific content on our own. As soon as we had something to share, Paul became a really active participant in the process. He’d point out the ramifications of each decision and offer alternatives. He climbed in with programmatic and substantive edits that weren’t just technical, which was helpful because we’d never designed an app before. So we went back and forth finalizing the wireframes and making sure the layout was what we were envisioning. Once we got the infrastructure done, his graphic designer started working with us on the look and feel of the interface. Because we had such complicated content, we wanted to keep the imagery as simple as possible. The designer was fantastic. That sums up our professional relationship throughout the project—whenever we need something, he climbs right in and helps brainstorm solutions that will meet our needs.

How did you come to work with 3Advance?

When we were looking for an app developer, I reached out to my contacts in the technology and safety world and asked for recommendations. Different people led me down different roads. Several people pointed me to 3Advance and said they’d had really good experiences. I scheduled three interviews with firms that looked promising. The first two spent the whole time telling me about the awards they had won; they weren’t the most productive conversations. When I got on the phone with 3Advance, though, Paul listened to my description of what I was envisioning and he asked me insightful, spot-on questions. He just jumped right in and started brainstorming with me. That was what won me over. Instead of trying to sell me, he was trying to solve the problem.

How much have you invested with 3Advance?

We ended up spending about $200,000 to develop the app including all of the required additional specifications from the Department of Justice.

What is the status of this engagement?

We were awarded the grant in the fall of 2014 and were able to start spending in January of 2015. We had a two-year timeframe and a set budget, but we actually finished ahead of schedule and under budget. We asked the Department of Justice for permission to do some additional work, and we’re now working on a Spanish-language version of the app.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We did come in under budget and ahead of schedule. So far, the feedback on the app’s beta test has been great.

What did you find most impressive about 3Advance?

Over my career, I’ve specialized in the intersection of technology and violence against women, so given that, I’ve worked with a lot of different technology vendors. I will say that 3Advance has been the easiest to work with. They’re very good at wrapping their heads around where we’re coming from and what our perspective is, even when it’s very different from the norm. Most people in the data world think that some data is good, more data is better, and all data is best, but because we’re in the victim privacy field, the opposite is true for us. We’re looking to keep track of the least possible data about our users. 3Advance was great about that. The other great thing about 3Advance is that they have great social skills. They came with us to a conference in San Francisco, and they were able to talk to non-techies about the app development world in a way that was really easy to understand. A lot of techies have a hard time communicating with people outside the tech world, but 3Advance was great at that.

Are there any areas 3Advance could improve?

None that I could think of.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with 3Advance?

When you’re looking for vendors in the technology field, you have to go with someone who can speak your language. You’re not going to get anywhere if you spend all your time trying to get the vendor to understand where you’re coming from. Anybody can design, but if you don’t understand me, you’re going to design the wrong way.