Appstronauts

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of several auto body shops in Poland.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Appstronauts?

As an owner, I have many things to manage such as orders, business operations, as well as employees. My business used to be totally offline several years ago; all my new customers came from the recommendations of our satisfied ones. I wanted to grow my business and gain new customers online, as well as find a way to optimize our processes and automate everything, so I decided to build a web app.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed a web app for me, recommending a technology that’s cheap to maintain. The app allows me to manage almost everything and is also mobile friendly. Additionally, Appstronauts built a website that describes all the services we offer, which we’re aiming to expand in the future.

They’re building a progressive web app using used Node.js, HTML, and CSS, as well as Bootstrap for the frontend. There are many advantages to this, and it’s what they specialize in.

What is the team composition?

We started with one project manager and one developer, and then it grew to two developers.

How did you come to work with Appstronauts?

I created a post in a Facebook group and several of my friends recommended them. I picked five offers out of 50 companies. I met with three of those companies, and I really liked Appstronauts’ co-founders. I had a feeling they could create what I needed and that I would be a part of the process, which is what I wanted.

How much have you invested in them?

I spent around $14,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from October 2016–March 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Everything is working well. I’ve been able to get more done online as well as capture new customers through the website and Facebook Ads. I’m also happy that I can take care of everything in the web app, which is also available for me on my phone, allowing me to manage my business anywhere.

I had some experience with IT teams, but I wasn’t happy because they didn’t deliver. Appstronauts delivered and I’m now able to have everything automatically. Before, when my accountant was on vacation, I wasn’t able to send receipts; now, I’m able to do it myself.

How did Appstronauts perform from a project management standpoint?

They delivered on time and were in contact with us throughout the whole process, which was really nice. We mainly used Slack to communicate. They also invited me to a testing session, which was really awesome.

Initially, one of their co-founders was responsible for my project, and later on, passed it on to a dedicated project manager who handled the entire process. If there were any issues or questions, I could always ask either of the co-founders. They were always helpful and answered all of my questions.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their knowledge is impressive. They produced high-quality work and treated me as a friend, making me a part of the whole process. I was so excited for my product; whenever a certain feature was completed, they’d automatically upload it to a server, thus making it possible for me to test it.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I didn’t personally meet the people I had previously hired, but I met with the Appstronauts’ team, which was a good idea.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the COO & Co-Founder of Mobitouch

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

IT services and design

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Appstronauts to accomplish?

• Custom software design

SOLUTION

How did you find Appstronauts?

Soda slack

Why did you select Appstronauts over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me

How many teammates from Appstronauts were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The task was to implement a graphic design for a mobile application

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The project was completed on time and approved by the product owner

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

everything went fine

What was your primary form of communication with Appstronauts?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

We were impressed by their method of communication and customer care process

Are there any areas for improvement or something Appstronauts could have done differently?

No

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

 I am the CEO of a real estate company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Advisory in the real estate sector.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Appstronauts to accomplish?

• create a dedicated platform to manage my business

SOLUTION

How did you find Appstronauts?

Online Search

Why did you select Appstronauts over others?

• Close to my geographic location
• Pricing fit our budget
• Referred to me

How many teammates from Appstronauts were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The goal is to build a platform to control ana manage flats to rent, PRS units by my company and also to control an assetes by clients. The scope was: choose the intuitive interface then build light platform to manage on the computers and mobiles and focus on the RODO policies.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The project is onther go.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Till now all the works are in time. No complains.

What was your primary form of communication with Appstronauts?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Their flexibility is a large advantage.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Appstronauts could have done differently?

Nothing is comming to my mind.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the director of an employment agency.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Appstronauts, and what were your goals?

We needed an up-and-running website on short notice with a fully functioning and secure e-mail structure. Other than the all-around website setup, we required a contact form which gathered and sorted the needed data. As a young company, we needed to be perceived as a bigger business to stay competitive, which at the time, depended on our web presence.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Appstronauts were very quick to deliver on our requirements and designed a fully functioning e-mail structure together with the required data capture functionalities. Any suggestions of alteration were ironed out quickly and to the point. We've quickly built a good reputation due to being easily accessible online and via a well-structured mailing landscape.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

During our kick-off meeting, we gave Appstronauts our colour scheme requirements, our demographics and further details regarding our core functionalities. We provided our budget and timeframe. After said meeting, we were positively surprised to have had the website up and running before we even managed to take the next steps in our endeavours.

In consideration of our wishes, Appstronauts set up all the site functionalities requested in the meeting. Our request was to have them maintain our full domain and thus we did not have the need to peak under the hood as to what was used to set it all up.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Our collaboration was with only two members. The COO and one of his DevOps members.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Our domain (Website + mailing structure) was up and running within less than a week. Any alterations requested were performed within the same day (during hyper care of the first month). Since then we have not experienced any downtime nor missing data. All of our target audience was able to reach us easily. The information needed was easy to find and requests to help set up further mailing routes were processed promptly.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

As already mentioned, we were pleased with the promptness of the design and setup. All our communication was done either by mail or phone.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Easily approachable and pleasant to communicate with. No unnecessary layers as the COO took care of redirecting our needs to the right team members. The creativity to have a professionally looking website quickly, with little input on the design end.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

As already mentioned, there were a few things we requested to be altered after they presented us with the product. However, this was only natural, as our guidelines were very limited and thus being able to polish a almost complete product, was much easier for us during our time of turmoil.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a freelance SEO consultant and web publisher.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Appstronauts?

I needed to find a good developer, with a basic understanding of SEO processes. I wanted to create a few custom software solution for my content platform.

SOLUTION

How did you select this agency and what were the deciding factors?

Appstronauts provided me with a qualified developer, who was able to finish the job in under three months.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

The goal was to combine various APIs and third-party tool to create a combined panel, that performs analysis and proposes SEO insights based on this. There was also an API integration with an AI writer.

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

I knew this agency from my previous business endeavors. After being unable to find a good programmer to work with on my own I've decided to lend one for a time.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the engagement that demonstrate progress or success?

They were able to deliver the desired pieces of software on time.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

There were no problems with cooperation. The person sent to me by Appstronauts understood my needs and performed the job well.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The ability to provide me with the much-needed workforce almost instantly. Their ability to deliver was something worth mentioning.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

I don't think so.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm project manager in medical company specialising in delivery of medicals and chemicals to hospital and medical places around the europe. My responsibilities are: cooperating with partners, delivery proccess, tech-team management & project planning.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Appstronauts?

We have been looking for a company offering outsourcing services, as we wanted to hire developers in order to build a platform, that will allow us to manage chemicals & medicals orders proccess within our partner network around the Europe. We had a little amount of time to deliver PoC (2 months) & MVP (5 months). They have delivered that!!!!

SOLUTION

How did you select this agency and what were the deciding factors?

We were looking for a technology partner company who could easily meet our requirements in terms of incoming deadlines, project schedule, technology stack and quality. Deciding factor was time to deliver and setup the whole project team and quality of developers who are working with us

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

Appstronauts provided us 3 developers in order to develop our platform.

1. PoC within 2 months

2. MVP within next 5-6 months (we are finalising MVP).

3. Full product - depends on MVP will be released next year. MVP is under testing and will be released at the beginning of next year There were a PM & Senior Architect support from Appstronauts side during the project.

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

We were looking for 3 developers: 2 senior fullstack (.NET / Angular) developers and 1 regular. We were proposed 4 candidates and picked 3 best. There were 2 stages: first: rounded table interview with Appstronauts COO & devs and second: tech interview (our CTO vs dev).

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the engagement that demonstrate progress or success?

At this stage we have delivered Proof of Concept and internal MVP that will be published early next (March 2022) and then we will start product growth.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It was very effective. We have created the Jira & Slack and communicate on a daily basis with tech team. I appreciate the whole process, demos, standups, planning sessions. It is a bit of fun for business people to participate in that!

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Communication, open-mindedness, and goal-orientation. They are high-quality developers out of all members that I have met.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

No, there were some small problems at the beginning of the project, related to our company processes and accesses, so the start was postponed for 2 weeks, but we have managed that.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Ergonode is modern open-source PIM solution. It helps customers empower their team enrichment experiences with product catalog management.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Appstronauts?

Appstronauts helped us establish better Quality Management. With their people, we can augment our core team and deliver great quality to 1.0 version of the products.

What were your goals for this project?

Better Quality Management, more complex view on QA in our development process.

SOLUTION

How did you select Appstronauts?

We make short selection with few companies and Appstronauts skills and experience in QA area impressed our Core Team.

Describe the project in detail.

Ergonode is an open-source project, so the experience of onboarding new potential contributors and developers is crucial. So we have to establish an outstanding QA process with automation end-to-end tests. Especially that our solution is a microservice approach. So the Appstronauts' team had to solve a big challenge - how to support our way to deliver best-in-class Development Quality.

What was the team composition?

QA mentor and QA specialist with strong experience with gherkin and frontend automatic testing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Our clients and contributors are impressed with Code Quality of Ergonode software. We have more and more leads from german and benelux markets.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We work closely with our core team. People from Appstronauts were scrum team members during our cooperation.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We had a good experience, thanks to their open-mindedness and outstanding ideas.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Better onboarding process during first days of our cooperation.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Project Manager

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Appstronauts, and what were your goals?

Appstronauts showed us great support. They have been able to deliver a team of senior developers on a very tight deadline. Their team had high technical skills and perfect English! Our client from Switzerland was very pleased with the quality of the code and paste of work.

SOLUTION

How did you select Appstronauts and what were the deciding factors?

We have heard a lot of good opionions about them

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Software delivey .Net, .net core. They have delivered two great people in time and on budget.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

2 senior developers

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

General deliveries, two great people that we can work with

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

Awsome delivery management.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Their support during difficulties

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Prices a little bit high