Horizon Labs

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder/CEO of a consumer app for motherhood located in Sydney, Australia

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We needed someone to bring the dream to life! To take some (very sketchy) wireframes and turn it into a functioning app for our users. We have gone through nearly 3 iterations of our app now and Horizon has been there the whole way.

We are looking at 15k beta users by the end of this year which is exceeding our expectations.

SOLUTION

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

We were referred to Horizon through mutual friends. I wanted an engineering partner who believed in what we were trying to build and felt connected to the mission. Also someone who was willing to offer suggestions, ideas and feedback on the product when appropriate.

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

0-1 was really the scope from the beginning. Turn nothing into something! Now our key deliverables are much more process-driven and led by design and eng sprints that horizon no longer leads but is involved with in collaboration with our internal dev team.

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

We worked initially with 2 developers, we have since moved to one full-time. Both senior engineers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Within 8 months we managed to launch a very early stage version of our product and invited approximately 500 beta users onto the app for feedback. Since then we have re-launched a newer version and are getting approximately 100 new downloads a day, still in a closed Beta.

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

Horizon was very involved and communicated daily with our team via our internal slack channel. Communication is always timely and fun!

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

How passionate they are about each product they work on and how committed they are to delivering a best-in-class product. They never cut corners.

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

We definitely needed help in more areas of the business beyond just engineering. I know we would have benefitted from access to product managers ad QA's, but acknowledge we started working with them at quite an early stage in both our businesses so these might be services they offer at present.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Proudly is a health and fitness company specialising in training and nutrition programs designed for women all around the world. I am the Founder and CEO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

I wanted to increase the engagement with my current audience and build subscribers by providing highly-tailored custom workouts and nutrition advice. I needed a team for a full-service offering to design and build a high-end, scalable mobile application, digital platform and experience.

SOLUTION

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

I had multiple meetings with various app building companies. Horizon aligned with my vision, were realistic, and transparent about what was involved in this process from a time, financial, and resources perspective. Their attention to detail and obsession with putting the user first was incredibly important to me and the success of my business.

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

We are building a cross-platform mobile application (flutter) and a backend administration platform (Ruby) to deliver a health / fitness and mindfulness app and platform to my customers. Following team selection, we held a number of workshops facilitated by Horizon project team to capture key project requirements, user stories and we collectively prioritised a series of features.

Horizon then had its product designer come up with a number of low fidelity wireframes and high fidelity product designs matching the key requirements which we then broke into a series of sprints. We engage on a weekly basis where we talk about project status. Requirement confirmations, scope discussions etc. We are still developing the final features and preparing for beta testing prior to go-live.

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

There is a team of 8 working on the project. Key resources I engaged with include:

• CEO - Christopher
• CTO - Varun
• Product Designer - Bryan
• Senior Backend engineer - Patrick
• Product Owner - Jerry

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The quality of design and development is outstanding. I am very pleased I selected Horizon Labs. They are passionate about creating an outstanding customer experience which is important to my business and my customers in a competitive market.

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

The project management style has been highly structured with all communication and timeliness clearly articulated and on point. We use a number of tools for communication including a tool called slack, and a project tracking tool called Jira to manage the visibility of project tasks.

I've also been invited to Zeplin to review the app screens individually and Test Pilot to test the app before we launch. All of these tools help me understand where the project is from a timeline perspective and streamlines engagement and communication with Horizon Labs.

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

The people and passion for their trade and craft. The quality of their execution at every stage is impressive. They clearly love what they do and it reflects in the products they build.

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

Nothing I can think of, the experience has been fantastic.