InApp

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a fintech company, and we’ve built a mobile app in which we have our own crypto coins and tokens. As technical manager, I oversee all of the development as well as the teams from all around the world that are working on the projects. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with InApp?

We engaged InApp to build a mobile wallet application for us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

InApp mostly did the frontend for the application, taking the designs that we had and implementing that onto the app. 

What is the team composition?

We’re two weeks out from launch, so we’re now interacting with the project manager, the account manager, and around eight people on a daily basis. Since the start of the project, we’ve worked with 12–15 people in total.

How did you come to work with InApp?

I was not part of the selection process; our CTO was the one who found InApp.

How much have you invested with them?

We've invested around $250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started talking in the fall of 2021, but our work really began in December 2021. We have an ongoing engagement.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve yet to see the full functionality, but what we’ve received from InApp looks great. From a design standpoint, everything is fantastic. We’re hoping to see everything come together very soon. 

InApp continues to respond almost immediately, even working crazy hours despite our timezone differences. We rally together to make it work, which is fantastic to see. We’re all pushing for the deadline, and for the most part, we’re able to work well together. 

How did InApp perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is fantastic. InApp is one of the best teams I’ve ever worked with. They’re very detail-oriented and engaged with the group. 

We use the Atlassian suite for task management and PowerPoint presentations for our review meetings. For testing purposes, we utilize the app stores. On top of our weekly meetings, we have conversations over Slack and Discord.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The InApp team is very easy to talk to. We’re able to communicate well and exchange options regarding the project. There’s never been a time when a question was left unanswered. They get back to us very quickly, which sets them apart from other companies that need to b chased for days on end for a response. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’re now in the 11th hour and I’m very concerned if we are going to finish the project on time. Throughout the engagement, unfortunately, we’ve lost two CTOs, which has caused some gaps in the management of expectations, shifts in our communication, and scope creep. We’ve received demos along the way, but I definitely would’ve liked to have seen more.

We should’ve been more honest in terms of the time it would take to actually build the product or stayed within the limits of InApp’s skillset and expertise. It has resulted in the constant pushing of deadlines, which has been extremely frustrating, but we’ve communicated through it and have since brought in the right resources to handle particularly challenging tasks.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure that you, as a client, know what you want and what your requirements are going to look like. Despite the challenges we’ve faced with this project, I still highly recommend working with InApp. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of Z5 Inventory. We work in the healthcare space, providing software that allows hospital networks and organizations to count and value their inventory. On top of that, we provide analytics that helps our customers optimize their purchasing and supply chain and move around inventory to eliminate product expiration, overstock, and disuse. What we are attempting to do is save hospital networks and care providers millions of dollars by helping them avoid inventory expirations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with InApp?

When I came to this company about a year and a half ago, we already had an existing platform and offshore provider. However, we needed to rebuild that platform from the ground up with the help of a professional engineering team, so we brought in InApp. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our legacy platform is a typical, monolithic, single API server that is very outdated in terms of architecture and design. We wanted something that moved towards the direction of microservices with big data capabilities, containerized deployments, and high security. InApp helped us start from the ground up and employ the use of newer deployment technologies like Kubernetes.

The new platform that their team worked on is primarily JavaScript-based on the backend, with new technologies integrated into the frontend and the UI. I designed the architecture from a very high level to a very granular level and passed it on to InApp for implementation. 

There were different layers that we addressed during development: application, microservices, backend data, and CIPD and DevOps. InApp dove into each of those layers to develop and execute my specifications for the database, search engine, methods and parameters, and API.

InApp also helped us natively develop a single JavaScript codebase. This was done so that we wouldn’t need two separate code bases for Android and iOS. They supplied a DevOps team to configure our CIPD pipeline and automate our deployment and infrastructure rollout. Their QA and testing services to cover us on all levels as well.

What is the team composition?

In the last 5 years, I’ve worked with around 30–40 different people from InApp. The team consisted of front- and backend engineers, DevOps engineers, and QA testers. 

I’ve developed a pretty good relationship with Vijay (CEO), Krishna (COO), and Jayan (Senior Test Analyst) who runs the gamut of engineers all the way up to the executive suite.

How did you come to work with InApp?

Two startups ago, we had a domestic engineering team of 26 people but were moving towards having an offshore team. KK Had spent some time in Austin, so he may have been connected with our co-founder. We started talking and struck up a good relationship, so we got them on board for the project. We transitioned all of our engineering efforts over to InApp.

How much have you invested with them?

Between multiple projects, we've invested around $700,000–$1,000,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in the summer of 2016, and the work is still ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

To determine the quality of the code, we use SonarQube and another automated product that we're currently working on. We also conduct manual reviews where I look into what has been developed against the design and what patterns and styles were used. We make a judgment of how professional and clean the code is, how easy it is to absorb and understand, and whether it's fully documented. 

On the Java side of the development, we use JavaDoc to tell us what the input and parameters are, what the output is going to be, and what the description of the method is. We also take into account the actual consumption of the product, specifically if it's scalable and responsive from a UI perspective. We try to determine whether the product can handle the anticipated load. 

InApp’s code was able to come up to standard against all these metrics. I’m used to having the design come first and then have an engineering team execute it, but InApp was able to deliver quality code despite working by a different model. I’ve worked with a number of different teams, both domestic and offshore, and InApp proved to be the best at executing designs and architecture in a very professional manner. 

How did InApp perform from a project management standpoint?

Suchi (VP) manages the product and engineering team exceptionally well. She participates in daily Google Meet stand-ups. We have project management tools in place such as Trello, Jira, Bitbucket, Confluence, and the whole Atlassian suite, through which Suchi runs the sprints. A lot has gone on during development and she has kept things organized.

We share and store information, requirements, designs, and architectures through the Atlassian suite, with Slack as our integrated communication platform. We use Jira for ticketing, Trello for road mapping, and Bitbucket for depositing code. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Something particularly exceptional about InApp is the professional nature of their code. It is above and beyond what we expect from most engineering organizations. The team has the ability to consume and execute architectures and designs.

Are there any areas they could improve?

From an engineering perspective, there's nothing for them to improve on. There have been issues along the way but we’ve always worked through them. 

Though if I were to pick one thing that needs improvement, it would be their graphic design. I don't fault them for this as this is not their core competency, but they could benefit from using newer designs and graphics.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be sure to have your designs, architectures, and requirements ready beforehand. If you deliver that correctly, you will get exactly what you asked for. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the principal technologist at the Mid-Ohio Food Collective. We’re on of the 200 Feeding America food banks across the countries, an organization that supports and feed hundreds of thousands of families every year.

Our branch also supports software. We created a software platform that’s used by about 5,000 food pantries across the country.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with InApp?

They provide ongoing software development and DevOps work for us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had a legacy product, and InApp’s first task was to rebuild and refactor it, moving from a on-premises architecture to a cloud architecture. Additionally, they moved us from a traditional B2B web solution, where the primary users of our software were food pantries, to a B2C solution. COVID-19 brought about this transition opportunity, as food pantries across the country had to pivot dramatically to continue services.

The platform was built on the AWS cloud. Much of the frontend work is done in React JS, and some of the legacy conversion is in the Laravel PHP framework. The rest of the cloud architecture uses AWS Lambda, RDS databases, and CloudFront S3. We’re completely server-less in our architecture.

What is the team composition?

Presently, we work with 10 people, including a project manager. I’ve worked with half a dozen other members throughout the relationship as well, including their CTO. They come on board as needed as we require special skills.

How did you come to work with InApp?

Our relationship is a testament to the occasional power of the cold call. We’d been attempting to hire web developers domestically, but because we’re a nonprofit, it can be extremely difficult to meet market IT rates. Somebody at InApp saw our listing online and reached out to our CEO, who forwarded the contact to me. I’d considered off-shoring — and I don’t use that term anymore; I prefer remote-work — especially to India, so I was open to the idea. I followed some of their developers on LinkedIn and viewed their Facebook page, which demonstrated their nearly 20-year history and pedigree. InApp’s resources appeared reliable, and they had people based in the United States who were my first points of contact.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested over $350,000 so far, which is a good-sized project in the non-profit world.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since November 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I’m impressed with InApp’s ability to offer creative solutions when we don’t know the answers ourselves. We’ve truly leaned on them to think like a large corporate IT shop. Rather than requiring us to tell them how to perform the work, we were able to collaborate on a strategy with their entire company, from the CEO and CTO on down, to deliver on our goals. This is an amazing accomplishment, especially in the face of the hunger and food insecurity generated by COVID-19.

They’ve matched our expectations very well. We haven’t had any major challenges, other than our unique business space. Feeding hungry people is a goal unlike any other in the business world, and most folks aren’t used to operating in it. When your business is to give away goods, it’s harder to describe to a typical IT outsourcing company. We were lucky that they’d worked with a few non-governmental organizations before, however.

How did InApp perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve done a solid job from this perspective. I have an assigned project manager, as well as an account director above them. We have full-team weekly standpoints and are connected over Slack in real-time. Our time zones are nearly ten hours apart, but it doesn’t hamper communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

InApp has bought into and adopted our vision as an organization. If I were at a large, for-profit firm, I wouldn’t be able to say that. Everyone understands poverty and hunger, however, and that beautiful technology is a way to end those challenges. Their ability to embrace our mission has been one of the highlights of this past year.

As a nonprofit that has big goals and desires but doesn’t have a massive corporate budget to spend on IT and software development, we chose InApp because it was a good way to spend our philanthropic dollars to get a lot of work done at a fair price.

Are there any areas they could improve?

One aspect of the work we’ve pivoted on is that they weren’t used to having a customer so open and willing to hear different ideas about how to accomplish a task. Unfortunately, a lot of outsourcing companies are stymied by restrictive specifications and timelines. This isn’t a knock on InApp, but we’ve been able to be far more open to their suggestions than their typical client is. They didn’t realize how the relationship would develop as it did because they didn’t have as much previous experience with non-profits.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Find easy ways to engage with the new team about your company’s vision and mission. We took a genuine interest in learning about the people on their team from the earliest days of the project. They’d never been to a food pantry or a food bank in the United States, and by sharing as much of the inside knowledge of that industry, we built a strong, healthy context around the work. We viewed InApp’s remote workers as no different than our internal employees.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of a maintenance software application development firm. We create software for managing, tracking, and scheduling maintenance activities. I’ve been with the company for 26 years.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with InApp?

Originally, we hired InApp to help us with mobile app development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

From there, they expanded their role into taking over our QA. Eventually, they took over all of our software development. They’ve been our main software developer for 3–4 major revisions of our software.

Most recently, InApp helped with a product revision. The team provided services from initial requirements definition, design, and architecture to the development, QA, and production. The team works in .NET, C#, JavaScript, and Jscript. They use Flutter for the frontend UI with a SQL server on the backend.

They also offer ongoing maintenance and support for the application. They continue to maintain the product through software updates and have provided all of the associated documentation as well as the help system included in the product.

What is the team composition?

We work with 23–24 people from InApp. I primarily work with the team leads and Jayakrishnan (COO) is my primary contact. We also work with a team lead.

How did you come to work with InApp?

We put out a worldwide RFP looking for a partner to help us with this development. InApp was the only company that was looking to provide exactly the services that we wanted without request for ongoing royalties or trying to sell us a proprietary tool. They did such a good job that we wanted to continue working with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $1 million–$10 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2005, and our work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We measure their success based on the amount of effort we have to do to maintain the product over time. We also factor in retention rate and the response from the customer base. We also look at performance metrics, infrastructure resources, and allocation.

Overall, InApp delivers the solutions we need to meet the metrics that we’re looking for. I feel like they’re as important to my business as any of my employees. They’re not just contractors; I view them more as an extension of my team. They’ve always been very good at defining a project based exactly on what we’ve asked them to do.

How did InApp perform from a project management standpoint?

We do most of the project management internally. The team does a good job of keeping track of what we’ve been assigned to do. We communicate in daily emails, Google suite chatting, and video conferencing. Usually, we get together once a year.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team has never done anything that I would perceive as dishonest. They never try to pad the numbers, add hours, or flake on a deadline. They’ve always been forthright and diligent.

One time, they even came to me saying they had an inquiry from one of my competitors. They asked me how I’d feel about them working with that competitor. When I told them, I wasn’t comfortable with that, they rejected the offer.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing comes to mind.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to be careful with the cultural differences. Because of their culture, they’re extremely reluctant to tell me no. They see me as a customer and don’t want to tell me when I’m wrong. It’s important to know when you’re wrong when hiring a technical resource.

I’ve worked over the years to have them be upfront with me. Be clear with communication and treat them as human beings. If you treat them with respect and humanity, you’ll get a much better result.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the engineering manager of a crane payment innovation based in Switzerland. I manage a team of eight engineers – some of them are onsite, some are located in Philadelphia, and some are working remotely from India. We do embedded projects and Java enterprise cloud applications.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with InApp?

We needed extra capacity and resources weekly to achieve schedules and deadlines for other projects. Since we didn’t have enough skill set internally, we searched outside of the company.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

For all of our customers, we have to develop new features. Every month, the customer wants new features to pay in more comfortable ways. Because this is an always evolving market, we needed very agile team members that are completely absorbed in the agile framework.

They’re working on the backend and frontend. They have a lot of very skilled engineers that are full-stack developers.

What is the team composition?

Currently, there are four team members from InApp working on our project. Rubina (AVP) is my main contact.

How did you come to work with InApp?

When I joined the company, we already had a partnership with InApp, and it was suggested to me to continue with InApp.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working on some projects since 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have KPIs that are applied to our colleagues from InApp, and basically, they adjust to the KPIs of scrum because we’re scrum-oriented. This process produces performance indicators regularly, and I use things like velocity, capacity, and the usual indicators of scrum.

The highest performance indicators that I have been coming from their team. The main point that is their team members is incredibly willing to do everything possible in order to meet the deadline. If something bad happens during the development of a feature, but they promised a certain deadline, doing everything possible to reach the goal. The InApp team is passionate about what they do, willing to always go the extra mile.

How did InApp perform from a project management standpoint?

We used modern tools, some that are recommended in other big companies. They know all of the tools, and whenever I receive someone from their team, they’re already skilled.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m impressed with their capabilities to achieve the goals every time and in any condition. In two years of working with them, I can’t remember a failure.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, at the moment there isn’t anything. They’re all high-quality engineers that are amazing at what they do.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Hire engineers from InApp.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the COO of GoBeagle, Inc. We’re in the very beginning of becoming a small legal services startup.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with InApp?

We were looking for a company that could help us build the MVP of our legal app. The goal was to generate traction and gain interest from investors.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

InApp is building the MVP of our legal texting solution. Starting with provided wireframes, they’ve done everything, from the mock-ups to the full architecture planning and requirements document — basically all the pieces that we need for end-to-end development.

The product itself is based in AWS and has document uploading and text recognition functionalities. These allow it to pull data (e.g., addresses, numbers) and generate calculations based on that information. There’s also a lot of data entry functions, and it can produce automated organizational charts.

What is the team composition? 

Our contract includes four resources, but they’ve maximized that by pulling in additional people to help meet our timelines. Rubina (Assistant VP of QA) and Girija (Senior System Analyst) act as our project managers, and Girija also does some frontend work along with another person. Then, there’s a backend developer, two resources who do the mock-ups and UX, and a QA tester.

How did you come to work with InApp?

A Google software engineer recommended InApp to us. We met with their CEO and his team a few times to talk about what we wanted and really liked them. From the start, they seemed hands-on and dedicated to their work, and we could tell that they had a lot of enthusiasm for us. That was great to see since we weren’t established at the time. They also had a lot of experience working with US companies.

How much have you invested with them?

They charge about $10,000 per month.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in July 2020, and the project is ongoing. We’re now in our second contract, working on upgrades to our MVP to move toward our final product.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We basically came to them with nothing but a clear vision for what we wanted our MVP to do, and they’ve over-delivered to give us a full MVP. Even when we’ve ended up adding on some really out-of-scope requirements at the last minute, they’ve still delivered within our original timeframe and budget. 

Our CTO has been in software development for 20 years, and he’s commented that the caliber of InApp’s work is unrivaled. This project has a legal focus, so it requires a lot of learning to know what to build, and they’ve gone above and beyond to understand everything. 

How did InApp perform from a project management standpoint?

We’re really happy with the professionalism that they bring. I was initially a little concerned about working with an off-shore company because of the potential language barriers, but we haven’t had any issues with communication. We typically speak through email and have weekly status meetings to plan sprints, address issues, and collect feedback. The team emails us any questions that they may have and are always available to jump on calls during our open blocks.

In terms of project coordination, they use Mantis Bug Tracker along with an internal project management tool. We have access to them but haven’t taken the time to dive into the software much. What’s also great is that they trade in resources when they realize that a task might require more effort. All of this happens behind the scenes, so we don’t even have to worry about it from our side.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s their dedication and enthusiasm. The team figures out any problem that we ask them to and treat our project like it’s a part of their own company. They’re amazing at adapting to resolve questions, and it’s clear that they want success for us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there isn’t much to say since they address even the smallest tweaks immediately. The only thing I could point out is that we realized that we needed to meet more regularly, but we’re doing that, now.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

During initial meetings, people tend to be more reserved about what they want instead of really having a full conversation, but I’d recommend taking full advantage of those talks. InApp really sought to understand us from the beginning so that they could best answer our requests, so we’ve always been very straightforward with them. It’s never felt like a formal negotiation like with other vendors — rather, they have a more informal process.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a distributor of integration products for the AV industry and have been around since 1967. I’m the VP of technology for the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with InApp?

They helped us create a scheduling product to be used in the industry.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

InApp took over an existing code base, which is never an easy process. They had to back their way into someone else’s work and make sure that everything got to a best-practices level of compliance. They started with a well-organized initial meeting, so we knew everything we had to expect from them.

We created specifications for product enhancements, which were tied to specific hardware. They programmed instances of that hardware toward the end of the engagement.

Not only did InApp get the application up and running as needed, but they took it forward with new enhancements.

They developed the app in Java for Android and integrated APIs for external backend systems like Microsoft Exchange and Google G Suite.

There are also web portals associated with this product, so there was a fair share of PHP programming involved to make those connections work.

What is the team composition? 

Rakesh (Managing Partner) introduced us to the company, which was impressive in itself. Once we agreed on a scope of work, it got handed off to Bijoy (Associate Vice President). He’s been our main point of contact when we’ve started new engagements. After that, he’d assign us a project manager, who would be our point of contact. There were always other people on the team, including a PHP developer, an Android developer, and a QA person.

We have an internal QA person as well. There’s always a lot that we can’t communicate in terms of real-world use cases, and many suggestions come directly from customers. We have access to InApp’s bug reporting portal, in order to work with them on QA. They release builds to us after they’ve run them through their QA, and we run them through our QA.

How did you come to work with InApp?

We found them on Clutch after doing some web searches. InApp had skills in web and mobile, which is exactly what we needed. They also had offices in the US, and their team could work on schedules that were complementary to ours.

We had several web meetings and phone conversations prior to signing on with them. They gave us reassurances that they knew what they were doing and understood our needs. They were steeped in best practices, being certified by several best-practice organizations. They go through regular audits for those certifications. All of that came together to earn our trust.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost is in the tens of thousands of dollars,  varying depending on the resources we need. We get billed on a monthly basis. They account for resources that go unused.

What is the status of this engagement?

We signed off the first engagement in August 2018, and the work began in September 2018. The collaboration is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We measure success based on how well their deliverables function. They give us an exact idea of the timeframes and resources necessary to do certain tasks. We have to plan our releases around trade shows, so meeting those benchmarks is a notable measurement of success.

I’m very happy InApp’s work with us. The quality of work has been good. Had they done this project from the ground up, they may have opted to take the project in a different direction. However, they effectively took on an existing technology and code base with the frameworks and restrictions that applied.

From time to time, they suggest a more efficient way of running the project, which was appreciated. When we asked for specificity, they returned with concrete examples of what could be done more efficiently, resulting in a better user experience.

By and large, InApp’s ability to understand and absorb our needs is hugely important. We’re pretty good at specifying those things, but that specification is kind of dry and doesn’t capture the essence of our UX. There’s a qualitative aspect to it that can’t be quantified.

How did InApp perform from a project management standpoint?

Their approach was instructive to us. It was almost a culture shock working with InApp because everything was regimented and orderly. They followed through on all promises. 

We’ll probably go back to them for future engagements. If there was ever a reason for me to go elsewhere, I’d know what to expect in terms of structure and organization based on the example InApp set. We like InApp’s regimented and efficient approach to work.

They gave us access to Mantis for bug reporting. We have permission to see their progress and do bug reporting ourselves. That added to the efficiency of the operation. There was nothing getting lost in translation because all bug-related communication came through in big reports through Mantis.

What did you find most impressive about them?

InApp is very good at getting organized and prioritizing tasks. We give them our feature priorities based on a release schedule. They let us know when it would be more efficient to do something else, which allowed us to launch six features rather than one complex one. They always gave us options and allowed us to weigh them to make a decision.

They were generous in handling billing. If a resource went severely underutilized, they would alter the billing to reflect that. We also appreciated being able to access their executives when needed. They always gave us prompt replies.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I haven’t found anything objectionable in their work.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I recommend putting all your expectations and concerns on the table. InApp was generous with their time during early conversations, and other clients should take advantage of that. If there’s something particular about how we need to conduct our work, they’re more than willing to listen and to work with us. This can be unusual. Some service companies can’t bend outside of their usual framework to accommodate clients like InApp. 

If we communicate concerns or priorities, InApp will work with us to make those things happen according to best practices. One of the things they won’t do is go outside that framework, which is appreciated.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the general manager for a promotional product firm. Our core activity is printing on hard goods products. We import our source products, print client company logos on them, and wholesale them to our distributors. I oversee the operations side of the business. I happen to be coordinating what InApp is doing for us.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with InApp?

We needed to address the automation of some clerical processes.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’ve been working on our new ERP. We’re coding it from scratch. Also related to the ERP, they’ve been automating some of our processes such as customer online payments, self-service, and our shipping freight estimate API. They do various kinds of programming automation for us using MySQL, Laravel, PHP, JSON, and other technologies.

We’re still developing the website. InApp is involved in developing some of the functionalities on that platform. Several developers are working on our API development work, including InApp.

What is the team composition? 

I’ve worked with one of the main project managers. She oversees the team. She’s now on maternity leave, so someone else is filling in for now. I mainly work with the project coordinator, a developer, and a couple of others. Anil (CTO) is pretty good about answering some high-level technical questions.

How did you come to work with InApp?

I was looking for developers at the time and saw an email from InApp in my junk email. I Googled them and realized it wasn’t junk mail. They looked like a sizable company.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend between $300,000–$400,000 each year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2017, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We haven’t implemented much yet, which is how I’d normally measure success. They’re still debugging our earliest project together, and we’re about to implement our first module of the ERP. 

Then, we have several API services they’ve developed. One of them is in the middle of implementation, but it stopped working when we changed servers on our end. However, it was working well until we changed the server. They’ve launched another API on our site effectively as well. The other projects may take a little longer than expected, but I understand that’s because of the complexity of our processes.

How did InApp perform from a project management standpoint?

Communication is very good with their team. They’re very eager to get things done and improve. The documentation system on their end is strong. They’re able to come back to me with feedback when I say something contradictory to what I gave them in the specs. There’s a lot of transparency in communication, and they’re on top of everything.

The project managers are very capable. They know the project and our requirements. InApp clearly explains to us what’s possible, what’s tough, and what’s not realistic. We have very good discussions. We use Basecamp to communicate and Jira to track the progress.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m impressed with how the developers are able to catch all the business needs and understand our business processes.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The first application we started in 2017 is still not implemented yet. This morning, they were still debugging and testing it. I told them I wished the process could be faster. The debugging process took two years, and we’re still debugging now. Every time we have tests, there are issues. 

That’s why we’re staying away from their suggested development method in our new ERP. They recommended that we build on an already existing, canned product. That’s what is causing issues currently because of the limitations of a canned product. We’ll be writing the new ERP from scratch to rectify these issues. On the new ERP, we’re writing from scratch. I had a lengthy discussion with them on that.

The one thing I haven’t discussed with them is that I’d like to see a little more flexibility in changes to the application. We still have new features coming out each week because we want to keep our business flexible. Anytime we’re trying to do more for our customers, we like the system to handle all these new processes as we’re tightening up our processes constantly. I need an IT team to be able to keep up with this demand.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’m very hands-on and can micromanage, but I highly recommend them. They understand business. I advise you to be proactive when you specify your communication preferences. In the beginning, it took a few months for me to get used to communicating with them and establish the communication I needed. After a few months of working with them, I was able to get a daily update involving what they need from me, what’s stalling, and what’s in Jira now. I like that visibility but I don’t know if other people want that.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Respondent 1: I’m the president and CEO of Laminate Technologies.

Respondent 2: I’m the sales manager of Laminate Technologies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with InApp?

R1: We had an outdated order entry costing system. As raw material costs would continue to increase, and our company grew, we weren’t able to keep up with the cost increases. We contracted with InApp to initiate a system that would allow us to flag orders that didn’t meet certain raw material cost requirements.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

R2: The team wrote the custom program for us that enables us to keep track of material cost increases. InApp also created a new quoting system for us, which gave us a new way of logging our costs in terms of material coming in, so we could put together that audit system. 

What is the team composition?

R2: We worked with several people from InApp’s team, but only three key players. One team member was in charge of the sales and overseeing the project, and there were two others that handled the build.

How did you come to work with InApp?

R1: I believe they reached out to us through email inquiry, which started the conversation, and we eventually partnered together.

How much have you invested with them?

R1: We’ve spent about $60,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

R2: We started working together in July of 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

R1: The biggest hindrance to their success was our ability to keep up with them. They were moving much faster than we were able to feed them information. 

R2: Everything we’ve asked for, InApp has delivered. We started using the system about four months ago, and it’s allowed us to catch some pricing errors that we’ve been able to adjust in the marketplace. That’s going to be the biggest area of success, once everything is implemented through the new InApp process rather than the old one. It’s just going to continue to help us manage our costs as we continue to see spikes in raw material.

How did InApp perform from a project management standpoint?

R2: InApp has been excellent. Any time we have a question, no matter the time of day, they’re available. We do conference calls at a minimum weekly, sometimes multiple times weekly, depending on what needs to be addressed. 

We’ve done phone conferences, video conferences, and InApp has even traveled to the US to meet with our team and help us through the training process. They’ve been very flexible on everything.

What did you find most impressive about them?

R1: They’re proactive. InApp is able to grasp what we’re trying to achieve. 

R2: I agree 100%. I think there was a bit of a learning curve, but in their defense, anyone would’ve had to learn our industry. Once they figured it out, they were up and running, and always waiting on us more than we’ve ever waited on them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

R1: They had to wait on us for a lot of things, so it would’ve been great if they could’ve figured out how to keep us out of the loop on those things and streamlined the process themselves. I don’t know if that was even possible, but it would’ve saved time. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

R2: Outline your business and make sure you have your goals stated upfront. Have a detailed roadmap prepared before they even get there. There’s always going to be some kinks along the road and things you want to change, but I can’t say enough about InApp when it comes to that. Whenever there’s been something we’ve needed to be tweaked, they’ve been right on it. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the president of a contractor management software company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with InApp?

We brought them on to write a cloud-based service management software package to be distributed to our clients.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The project itself was a from-scratch program for the scheduling, dispatching, invoicing, maintenance agreement tracking, inventory control, and project management needs involved in running a service company.

Their team handled the entire development process, from the backend infrastructure to the frontend and UI/UX design. They made use of Javascript, PHP, AngularJS, Laravel, PostgreSQL, Java for Android, and Swift for iOS.

What is the team composition?

When we started the project, they had about 25-30 people on the team including a main point of contact and several project managers who served to connect us with the developers on our day-to-day operations. Now it’s closer to 10 people handling the maintenance and updates that we run from time to time.

How did you come to work with InApp?

They did a project back around 2004 that went well, so when this need came up it was an easy decision to bring them on to work with us again.

What is the status of this engagement?

This project began in April 2017 and we are continuing to partner together to maintain the platform.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They delivered the project that we asked them for exactly to our specifications. We’ve been very satisfied with the quality of the platform and the seamless service that it has allowed us to provide to our customers, so I really think they did an excellent job. We’re constantly enhancing the program, and they have continued to provide high-quality work on all of those efforts.

How did InApp perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is just as excellent as their development skill. We use email and video meetings to communicate, and they have consistently gone above and beyond to make sure that they understand all of our requirements and that our teams are on the same page about the overall goals of the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They take the time and effort to really understand the project and the reasons for what they’re doing. Not only that, but they follow through on everything they promise to deliver, so we have been able to develop a great deal of trust in their team, and that has been a huge asset to our partnership.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We honestly haven’t experienced anything that I think they needed to do differently. They’ve been excellent at every turn. Occasionally, when a key member has left their team, they’ve found fantastic replacements who we’ve been just as happy with as the original members and who were able to get up to speed without missing a beat at all.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I think it’s important to have a well-laid-our design document and know exactly what you want them to do because they’re going to do what you ask them to, and the better prepared you are for that the more exact your final result is going to be in the end.