Hathway

BACKGROUND

Can you give me a bit of background info on what your company does?

We make business management software for the health and wellness industry. We target small businesses like a yoga studio, Pilates studio, a small gym, a spa, or salon. Basically, we make software that manages all aspects of their business.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your main business goal or objective going into the project with Hathway?

With Hathway, we worked with them to build an iOS native app. We engaged them to build an iOS native application that would leverage our APIs. This was to deliver a lot of what we call our business mode usage for the staff of these small businesses directly on their mobile devices.

SOLUTION

What was the process for originally discovering and selecting Hathway to work with?

We created what we called a creative brief, which included personas, scenarios, and some functional requirements around what the mobile app would have to do. Then, we shopped that with a number of different development firms. Ultimately, Hathway responded overnight with prototypes for building out what this app would actually look like. They pitched it to us the next day. We were impressed with the user experience, kind of the way they just got into the mindset of our users. They not only understand the markets that we serve, they put together a really compelling presentation including functional, interactive prototypes overnight.

How long ago was the project completed?

Actually, it’s still ongoing. We just submitted the app to the App Store last Friday. We engaged them, I think it was back in November when we started. They just hit their deadline. We recently submitted the app, kind of the first MBP on Friday.

Can you provide a general cost estimate for the project?

It was billed hourly, and I think it was about $120 per hour.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How happy are you with the results so far? 

We’ve been thrilled, just really ecstatic. The design quality has been awesome. They really focused on the details. What’s been great is we haven’t had to give them a lot of direction in terms of making the app look and feel good. We’ve been more focused on just the empirical data of what the app needs to do, and what our clients really need, but not in terms of the user experience. The app looks beautiful. Just as important, they delivered on time, which has been awesome.

When working with Hathway, is there anything that is unique or special about them compared to other developers you’ve worked with?

What’s really unique is they’re actually located in the same city that we are. We’ve done outsourcing overseas before, and that’s been quite a challenge to try to coordinate schedules and meetings. In the past, we’ve provided pixel-perfect type designs to outsourced companies. What you get back is just not a lot of attention to detail. The designers kind of butchered it in a lot of ways. Hathway is located here in California. They come on-site once a week to kind of give us demonstrations of the app. That’s what’s been unique about them. We call it near-sourcing . They’re literally just down the street from us.

Is there anything that you’d do differently a second time around, or you think Hathaway could improve upon?

We changed direction a little bit with the project, just the direction of the original creative brief. We pivoted the project about a month in, such as in terms of the functional requirements. I can’t really fault Hathway for that. That was some of our own business decisions. They were able to move with those changes pretty smoothly. Overall, it’s actually been a really awesome, smooth experience.

BACKGROUND

Can you give a brief overview on what your company does?

We're a paint company, so we're in all the Home Depots. We're in the do-it-yourself market.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your main business goal or objective for undertaking the project?

Well, Hathway did a lot of internal applications for us, mainly to make some of our processes more efficient because a lot of our sales and internal groups have iPhones. Not really consumer-facing, but internal-facing apps you would call them.

SOLUTION

What was the process for originally discovering and choosing Hathway to work with?

We put everything out to bid. Somehow, we got a hold of them, and they put in their bids. Some projects they weren’t the first ones, but we thought we'd get a lot of value in going with them. It's just a matter of narrowing the different vendors down, and they actually won a couple of the projects.

What parts of the project are they generally involved in?

Pretty early on we did all the designing. They take on some of the interface design as well, but we tend to take a lot of control over that, rather than just like deferring. But, they are very helpful in helping us to figure out what technology would work best with this approach kind of thing. They're up to date on the latest platforms and things of that nature for mobile.

What technologies have they used when developing for you?

I know one of the projects they used Appcelerator. These are all IOS apps that we developed with them. I think it's partly that and Xcode for Apple. One of the projects, we actually went with another vendor. For whatever reason, they just couldn’t do it. Then, we actually turned to Hathway who really ran with it. We had designs in place, and they just took that and started developing the app that we wanted.

Do these internal applications hook into a database that you already have?

Right. SAP is what we're using internally, our enterprise system, and things like that.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How happy are you with the results?

Pretty happy. We haven’t launched a couple of these, so I guess I could tell you afterward if we were successful or not. These projects are ongoing. One of them was pretty good. We haven’t launched internally, but they've got everything where it's just a matter of some of the project owners and our branding managers to launch it. But, it worked as designed, so we're happy with it.

Can you give a general cost estimate for the project?

Under $50,000.

When working with Hathway, is there anything that you find unique or special compared to other developers that you've worked with?

What I like about them is they put a lot of attention toward working with you. I work closely with the CEO, and he's very responsive. He just wants to make sure everything is on the same page, which is nice. With some companies, you have to track down multiple people to get anything done, so that's what I appreciate.

Looking back on the project, would do anything differently a second time around?

Yes and no. I mean, they were on track. A lot of the delays weren’t their fault in the project. We have a lot of different groups we work with, and I like the fact that they're patient. I know they're a smaller company, so it's time is money for them. But, SAP is a very complex system to integrate with, and I think, sometimes, they don't get on the same page with other groups, and so there's a little bit of improvement there, especially with our other IT groups. But, from my point of view, they've delivered pretty much on everything.

BACKGROUND

Can you give a brief description on what your company does?

We do all semiconductor and solar and display equipment company. We generated that semiconductor, solar, and display equipment for the semiconductor and display industry. We created our own equipment, along with and service and workstations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your original goal or objective for undertaking the project with Hathway?

Our initial goal with Hathway was to build up our whole website facelift, and then redesign the blog including a mobile landing page with the company design.

What was your process for selecting Hathway with which to work?

We interviewed a bunch of other different Web vendors. Then, we decided on three final candidates. We deeply interviewed with them with our stakeholders or other segments. Then, we gave them one-hour presentations to discuss their capabilities and strength. We then decided who the right candidate was for our project. Hathway got the win.

SOLUTION

Could you discuss a little more about the scope of the project? 

It’s kind of hard to identify the exact scope because there is an ongoing support team that we talk to, day to day, about any technical issues or any design issues that we have. There is also a project developer team, too. Beyond that retainer bucket, we use our project bucket to do something with them by project base, such as a UX [user experience] audit project, UI [user interface] audit project, and analytics document report, and some other things. Also, we do blog redesign. Then we do each individual business segment, and landing page upgrade issues, too. We’ve kind of working with them on a bunch of different projects, not only just one specific project.

When was the most recent project completed?

They’re going to complete our blog project by February 1 of 2014.

Can you provide a general cost estimate for the work?

It’s very hard to say based on the project because they charge by the hour. We have brainstorming and strategy and discovery solutions, and then have a meeting with them. Then we tell them this is what we want. This is our instructions for this project, and how much you need for this. They ask me about their time, strategies, and design developer testing including everything.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How happy are you with the results of their work?

Very happy.

Is there anything that you found unique or special compared to other designers or developers you have worked with before?

That’s a very good question. There’s a special project maintenance skill they have. I’ll say their capability is the same as other people. All of the designers and developers have the same quality. But, their project maintenance skill is very nice because, for me, they propose time and material base. Then, they take all the iteration process before actually they ask me in the first place. So, they anticipated how this project going to be iterated taking into consideration. It’s that really wonderful type of project management skill, but an iteration-type of project management skill. Even if on the first draft, we don’t like it and our stakeholders don’t like it, we have much more opportunity to ask them back to redesign or modify it because that is part of the contract and proposal that they are willing to update. Then, they try to please us, no matter what changes we make to the project.

Looking back on the project, is there anything that you would do differently a second time around or that you think they can improve upon?

Not that I know of. Certain things we might need to notice after a quarter later. But, at this moment, we pretty much provide a bunch of different feedback because it’s full of blog processing, for example. We have five or six different stakeholders for those projects. Each time, they do the same mockup, and then we put in a comment. Then, they provide five or six different revisions for those mockups, and they explain what it is. Then, we get them to give us what we want. That’s part of our fault if we are going to say something later because it’s part of the iteration process and cooperating process. We’re not really dumping all the projects to them, and then they just develop for us instead without objections. It’s half of our fault if we’re going to say something later.