Helicon

BACKGROUND

I am the Founder of by Vegalia

We create digital products to increase diversity in the artistic space. We have created digital brushes that replicate different hair, fashion and nature textures, a coloring book featuring POC magical characters and now MeSona, an app that allows the user to create characters that feel like themselves. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

• Сreate personalized avatars using layered customization, advanced drawing tools, custom brushes, color palettes, outfits, accessories, and backgrounds.
• Improve the entire user journey, including onboarding, character selection, editing tools, app performance, artwork saving, and gallery management, while ensuring a smooth and consistent experience across iPhone and iPad.
• Reorganize the existing codebase, migrate backend services from AWS and MongoDB to Firebase, improve app stability, and implement the necessary functionality for subscriptions and App Store release.

SOLUTION

UpWork

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned

2-5 Employees

The project included migrating data from AWS to Firebase, implementing new UI designs, optimizing loading time speed, offline behavior and digital brush behaviors. The key deliverables were to reprogram the app from previous developers so that it could overall function better, follow current designs and overall suggest changes to build the strongest app possible for launch. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

App Store launch readiness: completed the main development scope, UI/UX improvements, subscription functionality, final QA, and App Store submission, bringing the product to the release stage.

Improved avatar asset rendering from 50–70% to 100% and artwork-saving reliability from 20–40% to 100%. Optimized loading and drawing responsiveness, fixed crash-related bugs, and integrated Firebase Crashlytics, preventing an estimated 85–90% of crashes across iPhone and iPad.

Operational efficiency: Successfully migrated backend functionality from AWS to Firebase, reorganized the application's architecture, and restored the admin dashboard to simplify content management.

The team was great at communication and always gave me an estimated timeline of when things would be completed. They were efficient and finished work when I expected it. They detailed what they were working on every Monday and sent me a new update every Friday.

Email or Messaging App

Helicon kept communication at the forefront of their business. They always were transparent with me and were very efficient with shipping updates. They explained aspects about the app development process that I didn't fully understand and took over anything that they could. They were so easy to work with and implemented my UI designs flawlessly as a beginner app designer. They were great to work with in every way! 

I don't have anything major to criticize. Obviously every founder wants their app to be completed quickly, and I think they overall did a great job at that but I would love for certain aspects to be quicker. Some of the bottleneck came from my end and not completing certain designs efficiently enough and they were great at accomodating those changes. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of a map-first planner company, offering an app for iPhone.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Helicon?

We needed help with the backend logic and front end improvements that primarily addressed calendar sync, recurrences, map issues, and the inter-relatedness of various features and views throughout the app.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Helicon has been helping us with the redesign and reskinning of our app. The team has also been working on the pro feature logic and improvements, including calendar sync, recurrences, AI foundation model implementation, and design upgrades. Moreover, Helicon has been working on notification improvements and view improvements, such as creating a better calendar and adjusting the logic to accommodate the new design. Overall, the project has spanned six milestones.

Helicon has mostly worked on the backend, but the team has also helped us with frontend improvements, such as button functionality, positioning, and animation improvements. The backend has primarily focused on the map, views, calendar, recurrences, and date/time interrelatedness and interactions.

What is the team composition?

A dedicated project manager and developer.

How did you come to work with Helicon?

We found them through an online search and Clutch. We chose them over other options because they had high ratings, a great culture fit, good value for the cost, aligned company values, and a great team.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in June 2026, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Helicon has improved our app’s performance and design. The team has created an actual working and believable product, which wasn’t consistent with its performance at first. Now, we’re not experiencing any bugs or issues.

How did Helicon perform from a project management standpoint?

Helicon has delivered on time and been clear about the timelines. We’ve had a dedicated project manager who has helped us. Overall, the team has been awesome at communicating with us and the developer to streamline operations and requests. We’ve communicated via email and messaging apps.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Helicon’s standard of communication and high bar for exceptional results have been impressive.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything for Helicon to improve. It’s great working with them; they’re as professional as they come.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of a fitness company.

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Fitness company

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Building tailored iOS & Android apps with AI functionality for the healthcare market.

SOLUTION

How did you find Helicon?

Online Search

Why did you select Helicon over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Helicon were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

High-performance mobile application for both iOS and Android, featuring a fully professional, user-centric design that aligns with the latest UX/UI standards. The app is engineered for scalability and responsiveness across devices, using robust frameworks to ensure a seamless cross-platform experience.

At its core, the product integrates advanced AI functionality powered by OpenAI’s models, going beyond basic chatbot interactions. These integrations include real-time natural language processing, personalized content generation, intelligent decision-making support, and adaptive learning based on user behavior.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Launched and scaled an iOS app to 10,000+ users with 4,4 app store ratings + Android app to 3000+ users

Launched and scaled an Android app to 2,000+ users

Designed a custom mobile user interface

Designed and developed AI-powered features for both apps

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

The team is very responsive. They have an agile project management system with talented people. So far, there has been no task we haven’t been able to conquer. Yes, they deliver on time with high quality. Response time is always under 24 hours. An honest and talented agency — feels like they are more a part of my team than an agency, to be honest.

What was your primary form of communication with Helicon?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

The entire process from design to development — I love that I have insight into everything myself. And the quality of the app: it's well-built with minimal to no bugs.

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

I genuinely appreciate being challenged on my ideas. It pushes me to think more critically and avoid tunnel vision. I always welcome constructive input that forces me to re-evaluate my assumptions and consider alternative approaches to solving the same problem. In this case, I would’ve valued even deeper pushback or counterpoints to stress-test my thinking further.

That said, I also recognize they did a great job of offering different perspectives and encouraging me to explore other viable paths. It helped me broaden my understanding and sharpen my decision-making. Going forward, I’d be excited to see even more rigorous debate and deeper exploration of trade-offs when discussing complex solutions to avoid having to re-develop some things. But I also acknowledge that complex things can't always be build perfect from the start.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of U1CORE

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We offer comprehensive design services, including Product Design, UI/UX Design, 3D and other services tailored to meet the specific needs.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Development

SOLUTION

How did you find Helicon?

Other

Why did you select Helicon over others?

• High ratings
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from Helicon were assigned to this project?

Other

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

Helicon Apps LLC did a fantastic job developing our project. Their team really understood what we needed and paid great attention to the details. They were supportive throughout the process and made sure everything went smoothly. We definitely recommend working with them!

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

As a result, we received high-quality and fast development.

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

Communication was fast and tasks were done on time.

What was your primary form of communication with Helicon?

Virtual Meeting

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

Good attitude to the client.

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

Everything was at a high level with our project.