Sneakers Apps

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of a social wellness application.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sneakers Apps?

We’ve worked with Sneakers Apps on several different levels for our app’s frontend development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Sneakers Apps is in charge of developing our app’s frontend, meaning its UI, look and feel, and everything related to how people see it on the App Store. We already had an MVP ready when we engaged, so we provided them with it along with our requirements, the wireframes, and some templates. Additionally, we explained what kind of look and feel we were looking for.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with 3–4 people from Sneakers Apps, including Christopher (Founder & CEO) and a project manager who worked directly with us on the design of some slides and functionalities.

How did you come to work with Sneakers Apps?

My business partner had crossed paths with Christopher, and we met and talked about things in general — it was good timing. I liked a lot of Sneakers Apps’ work and how efficient they were. They also had done other apps in the health and wellness space, which was a big plus.

I found out that they were a small shop, so it was great not to deal with a lot of layers within their organization. This would make them be more responsive and offer a hands-on approach.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around March 2019, and we’ve continued working with them on and off since.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The implementation of Sneakers Apps’ designs and the home screen they created helped us increase the usage of our app and the number of people joining. We’ve had more sign-ups, new users, and a better retention rate.

How did Sneakers Apps perform from a project management standpoint?

Sneakers Apps’ team is detail-oriented, responsive, professional, and timely. Christopher runs a very tight ship, and he’s very responsive. As long as we give them enough time to work, they’re capable of turning everything around when we need it. Whether they’re fixing a bug or making a change, they work quickly. We communicate via Slack and Zoom calls.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Sneakers Apps is very detail-oriented; they’re perfectionists in a good way. Additionally, they choose who to work with, which is great. For them, it is not just about the money, but they rather find partners and build long-term relationships.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. They’re trying to expand and grow organically, finding more clients and projects, but given their size, I would say that they’re a pretty solid and robust company overall.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be very upfront and clear about what you want so that Christopher knows your objectives. Sneakers Apps is neither the most economical nor the most expensive company, but you get what you pay for, and their work is well worth it.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of product at Kinetic, where we build wearable devices that help keep industrial workers safe. Especially in industries like manufacturing, distribution, and food and beverage, workers are often moving products around a warehouse, a truck, or a retail site. These devices detect unsafe biomechanics, posture, and positions that may lead to physical injuries and provide data that could help management teams make environmental changes to their facilities.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sneakers Apps?

We needed to quickly scale up our full-stack web development team since we were growing significantly at the time. That’s why we hired additional tech talent from Sneakers Apps to help us build out our product.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We worked with Sneakers Apps to identify how we could best augment our team. Before including some of their full-stack web developers into our group, we identified the skills that we needed and scoped out the work. Once we had scaled up, we began to build out our primary customer dashboard and emailing system.

There was a specific module and a couple of new features that they built from scratch. The team worked with me on the product management side to determine what we wanted to accomplish. They designed the architecture and put that into our legacy system. Their involvement basically entailed building something brand new, integrating it with an existing system, and providing support and maintenance to make it all work together.

Sneakers Apps also helped us establish and employ a lot of best practices in development. We’re a startup, so they advised us on how to streamline our work, coding, and software development efforts. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with a couple of full-stack developers from Sneakers Apps, but we provided product management and testing roles from our side. 

How did you come to work with Sneakers Apps?

We looked at four different development shops to work with, but we chose to work with Sneakers Apps because they were very flexible and could support locally based or nearshore teams, depending on our pricepoint. They were also based in New York, and it was important to us that they had the capacity to meet us in person despite the pandemic. 

They came in with a lot of experience, had a background in the space that we operated in, and understood the challenges we were facing. Chris (Founder & CEO) also happened to be a professional acquaintance of mine for years.

How much have you invested with them?

I don’t know the number offhand, but it was within the ballpark of $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our partnership lasted from June–October 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Sneakers Apps really helped us significantly reduce the amount of time to get new releases out. Our goal was to add a brand new emailing service so we could start delivering reports to our customers, and they were successful in helping us achieve that. 

Our in-house development team thought that the people from Sneakers Apps were really intelligent and improved our release process in terms of speed. The best practices that they brought into our company will definitely have long-lasting benefits on our team as well. 

How did Sneakers Apps perform from a project management standpoint?

Even though we had to make changes about halfway through the project to re-account for some of the work, Sneakers Apps was able to realign our timelines. Their team was easy to work and communicate with, and the fact that they were local added to that experience. They were contributing just as much as our full-time employees. 

We had regular standup meetings where we outlined our expectations. Our correspondence was 100% virtual due to COVID-19, though, even with our initial plan of having them come into our office. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The caliber of their developers is just excellent. They’re smart, quick-working, and really able to understand our challenges as a startup. At the time, we were very small and scrappy, but they were able to work with us in that sort of environment. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t remember anything that could’ve been odeon differently. I enjoyed the engagement and honestly wish we had worked with them longer.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure to talk Sneakers Apps through how your team can best engage with theirs. It will take a lot of time initially, but that’s what worked best for us. They offer a bunch of different options and models that could best fit how your company operates, so do take advantage of that as well.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Head of Engineering and Technology at a podcast publishing company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We put our apps into maintenance mode more or less and no longer needed a full team of engineers to manage the app development. We simply wanted part time work for bug fixes and minor improvements on iOS and Android apps.

SOLUTION

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

This was a decision from a previous manager. Though I do know we found them online and interviewed them prior to selecting them.

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

This is an ongoing project for bug fixes and minor improvements (like UI changes and changing the fields ingested from the API). These are spec-ed out and prioritized with the Sneakers team in standard agile Backlog Grooming and Sprint Planning meetings. The technologies used are iOS (Swift and SwiftUI) and Android (Kotlin and Java) and ingesting from the back-end GraphQL API.

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

A project manager/QA, two iOS engineers and one Android engineer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The team keeps track of their error percentage in Firebase and Instabug and ensures that it's never below the starting threshold.

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

The project manager and team are very easy to communicate with and willing to work to understand our needs. I feel confident that I can trust their development. I am also able to review their code as well if I have time, which also gives me greater peace of mind as an engineering lead.

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

The willingness to continuously and constantly communicate. If we need to change the way something is done, they are more than happy to work with us to find a good solution.

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

One thing we've talked about adding and are working on is having regular updates on the hours spent on our project and how many of our allotted hours from our contract remain in a given period.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and founder of a startup made by and for small e-commerce and retail businesses, offering same-day shipping and fulfillment.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sneakers Apps?

We were already building a network of fulfillment centers, and we wanted to venture out into the grocery space. As a result, we hired Sneakers Apps to conduct market research that could help us develop our marketing strategy and website solutions for our company.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Sneakers Apps started with basic market research to identify our competitors and market size because we only had a general understanding of the financial model that we were building for our service. They also did a thorough analysis in order to identify our competitors, after which they built our buyer personas. On top of that, they analyzed the best possible places for our first location. Eventually, the team created our website and handled our branding efforts, too. For the branding efforts, they created our logo, brand name, brand book, and more.

What is the team composition?

We collaborated with Chris (Founder & CEO). We also worked with their project manager, web designer, and UI/UX designer.

How did you come to work with Sneakers Apps?

Sneakers Apps was referred to us by the person who helped us build our financial business model. We were introduced to Chris, and our partnership started after we had a few conversations with him. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from August–October 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I was very delighted with the results that we had. Sneakers Apps was very thorough in organizing the information that we needed. Additionally, they were able to come up with a great visual for our website and a good brand name for our company. Moreover, they helped us understand and gauge our target market. In the end, it was up to us to decide whether we would act on their market research. Overall, the quality of their work was excellent. 

How did Sneakers Apps perform from a project management standpoint?

They really made it easy for me to navigate the project because I wasn’t an expert in marketing, market research, and branding. I also had a great time working with their project manager; he stayed on top of things and guided me and their team to deliver the results we needed. We primarily used Google and monday.com to communicate and manage the team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Sneakers Apps really cared about us and the results they were going to deliver to us. Their main focus was to satisfy our needs — it was the reason why we agreed to do this feedback and why we continue to keep in touch with them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

If their services were a little more affordable, that would’ve been a plus in our partnership. Moreover, some of the images on our website could’ve probably been better. However, that wasn’t really our goal.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our company builds various kinds of tech with heart and my position is founder and CEO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sneakers App?

We wanted to build a tool that could make it easier for people to keep in touch with those they care about, so we Sneakers App.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I approached Sneakers App with a business idea and a UX/UI that we wanted them to build the code for. The team developed both the front- and backend of the application. After testing it out, they helped me launch it on the App Store. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with around eight people from their team: the CEO of Sneakers App, a product manager, QA testers, and a couple of different mobile app developers. 

How did you come to work with Sneakers App?

Sneakers App came highly recommended by a bunch of different engineers that I spoke to. They've done great work for a fellow entrepreneur that I know and respect, so I knew they would be fit for this job. 

How much have you invested with them?

I’ve spent around $40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The partnership started in December 2019. The MVP was completed around May 2020, but we continue to work with the team for further iterations of the app. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It wouldn't have been possible to launch this app without Sneaker’s App’s help. 

How did Sneakers App perform from a project management standpoint?

The team does a really good job of managing the project. They know what they're doing and they map out all of the different steps and strategies for the development process. Everything is well documented, which makes it easy for the engineers to follow.

We communicated via email and Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The Sneakers App team is a pleasure to work with. They really share our vision and enthusiasm for the project. It makes it feel like they’re a part of our own company. They're not just here to collect their paycheck; they try to understand our mission and treat the product with a level of care that shows in the finished results.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There was an instance where they could’ve been a little more timely with their work, but they corrected that eventually so it’s all great. They're very accountable and are committed to completing the project with excellence, so that may have been just due to limited bandwidth or resources on their part 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They've done great work for me so I would highly recommend them to anyone who's looking for a good, committed app development agency. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of a travel platform. We offer an AI solution to help travelers plan their day based on real-time data.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with The Sneakers Agency?

We engaged The Sneakers Agency for iOS development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Sneakers Agency built out our platform as a consumer-facing iOS app. They worked with our internal developers to implement our existing backend infrastructure in the new app. The team then created the entire frontend based on our designs.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with five people. 

How did you come to work with The Sneakers Agency?

I worked with Chris (Founder and CEO, The Sneakers Agency) when I was at my last startup, and I loved the experience. When he started his own company, I reached out to him for this project because I wanted to work with his team again.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2018, and the project is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our product has launched to the market. We’ve only been live in the App Store for two weeks, but we’ve already been featured on the store and written up on different media site. We’re happy with the app’s reception and the project’s success so far.

How did The Sneakers Agency perform from a project management standpoint?

I wouldn’t say project management is The Sneakers Agency’s strongest suit. We have to do a lot of the management ourselves, but that’s our preferred mode of working. We want to have hands-on control of the team instead of letting them manage everything. We work with The Sneakers Agency in two-week sprints, and we’ve hit every goal so far.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I love working with Chris. I think he leads an incredible development team. The Sneakers Agency charges great rates for their in-depth experience in iOS development. The team can scale up or down depending on our needs; we can bring on additional people when we have to move faster, and we can reduce resources when we have to slow down and make decisions. We appreciate their flexibility. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of anything. I think they’ve been great.

Any advice for potential customers?

As with every development team, you should know exactly what you want The Sneakers Agency to build before hiring them. Plan ahead and be very explicit in your instructions.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the CEO of Lifehack Labs, a software development firm that focuses on improving personal productivity.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire The Sneakers Agency?

We hired Sneakers to fix a mobile app created by a previous developer, rebuilding it from the ground up. They have since been a reliable partner in maintaining the app.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted an app without bugs or issues that performed at a high level, with built-in tracking.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

A friend referred them to me.

Describe the project in detail.

Sneakers provided full development and design after we worked together to define specifications. The app allows users to easily sort through their camera role, delete unwanted pictures, and mark their favorites with a simple swipe, like Tinder. It runs on a freemium model, where users upgrade for the ability to sort through more pictures and view them by month.

What was the team composition?

We worked with a team comprised of several design and development resources.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The app has garnered several hundred thousand downloads and produced close to $100,000 in revenue. Aside from a few, minor issues, it’s been stable.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

They’re efficient and easy to work with.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Chris (Founder, The Sneakers Agency) and his team are friendly and responsive. We’ve never had any issues, and they’re always willing to jump in and help wherever they can. Their work is fantastic.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, not that I’ve seen. I’ve been extremely happy with our relationship. They're crushing it.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of product for The Infatuation—we write professional restaurant reviews and guides. Our whole skew is that the reviews are situational and conditional. We acquired Zagat this year, and are ultimately going to be bringing it into a community-driven platform to help us scale and provide an excellent resource.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with The Sneakers Agency?

We didn’t have any internal iOS resources. That meant we were looking for someone to come in and own the iOS transition of the app from its existing infrastructure into the new infrastructure we were building.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

When the transition began, we were working extremely closely with Sneakers. They essentially owned the rebuild and retooling to work with our infrastructure. They scoped everything out and acted as a real partner throughout the process.

When we acquired Zagat, we were given the app as a part of the acquisition. We had to remove certain features as part of decoupling from Google’s infrastructure, and we also had to rebuild almost all of the data pipelines that fed the app.

What is the team composition?

We worked closely with Chris (Founder, The Sneakers Agency). He did a lot of work on the project and also brought in one of his lead iOS engineers. The two of them ran the project.

How did you come to work with The Sneakers Agency?

I initially spoke to another iOS developer who I had worked with in the past. He was unable to do the work but recommended Sneakers to us. We met with them and found we had an upfront familiarity—we felt comfortable to bring them on board to own the entire iOS part of the project.

How much have you invested in them?

The cost was around $30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together on this project from March–August 2018. We continue to work with them for any maintenance as well as future iterations.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They were successful in rebuilding the app and getting it to launch. It was a pretty painless process and we’re very happy to get it out into the world.

We’re talking about bringing them on board to do some other work we have. We definitely feel comfortable having them take on a bigger workload.

How did The Sneakers Agency perform from a project management standpoint?

Chris was local to us in New York, so he would come by at least once a week for a catch-up meeting to go through any issues or feedback. It worked well. We embedded them into our existing project processes and managed the project using Slack and GitHub to ensure we worked closely together. It was pretty seamless and overall, I think it was a big success.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were very flexible at working into our process, which was a big success. Along the way, it felt clear that they were a good partner. We trusted that they were actually owning that process as there wasn’t a whole lot of oversight. I wouldn’t hesitate to work with them again because they took on the burden of the work and integrated into our own workflow.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything I wish had been different. When working with outside agencies, it can be hard to ensure that everyone is always on the exact same page. I don’t think that was a problem for them, especially given the nature of our project, which was well laid out.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It was helpful that we had access to the people working on the project and could put them in our own channel. Because Sneakers is a pretty small shop, we had the ability to work directly with them. Putting them in our Slack, our code management, and our project management programs allowed us to always understand where people were and where the work was, which was exactly what we wanted.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our agency provides staffing and recruiting solutions for consumer packaged goods industries. As the director of technology, I oversee our digital products and the accompanying data analytics.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with The Sneakers Agency?

We wanted to unite all of our job boards and sister companies on a single platform, so we needed help rebuilding our website to reflect our expansive brand.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Sneakers Agency used our existing wireframes to rebuild the website to our specifications. A majority of their work involved consolidating data from sister sites and importing the files on the main website. They also implemented new features, including a comprehensive admin dashboard, a blog, and a live-chat for customer support.

What is the team composition?

Their CTO was the liaison between our company and their development team. We initially worked with one senior developer, but we gained an architect and two junior developers towards the end of the project.  

How did you come to work with The Sneakers Agency?

Sneakers was an established partner before I came onboard. Familiarity and prior success were the most significant factors.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent a little more than $200,000 to rebuild the website.

What is the status of this engagement?

They worked on the website from April 2017 – February 2018, but we officially launched in November 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We had various brands with distinct voices and we struggled to consolidate our brands into one website.

How did The Sneakers Agency perform from a project management standpoint?

We continuously added work to the scope, but their project manager was receptive to our revolving needs and prioritized tasks accordingly. Our teams used Trello and Slack to manage the timeline and communicate respectively.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Although we didn't have a fully conceptualized vision for the website, Sneakers focused on developing the main features so that we’d have a finished product before the launch.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They performed to our expectations given our budget and timeframe, but their work would have been more effective if our team had done more research before commissioning the project.  

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

This was my first time working directly with an agency and we did not set expectations for maintaining the website after launch. Eventually, we brought someone in-house to manage that.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the co-founder of the TradeMade iOS app.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire The Sneakers Agency?

Our initial development company failed to successfully build the app, so we hired The Sneakers Agency to fix bugs and improve the app’s functionality.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We researched several app development agencies in New York City. By far, Sneakers Agency was the best out of the 5–7 we contacted.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

We tasked them with fixing core features and providing general feedback about the UI/UX. They made several changes, including fixing the internal chat functionality, installing and configuring key analytics, and implementing tracking. Aside from improving the app’s UI/UX, they also provided development consultation and walked us through our backend framework.

What was the team composition?

We worked with their CEO and a few of their developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

They delivered and then some. Now, the app functions exactly how we imagined it. The bug fixes and dev solutions were integrated perfectly and ahead of schedule. They even tested the app and removed the burden of QA, which other agencies didn't offer. Overall, it was an excellent experience.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Their team was skilled in all frontend and backend iOS languages. There was never an issue of whether or not a problem could be solved.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Everyone was incredibly talented and communicated perfectly. Their care and attention were impressive. Once you know a team is capable of doing the dev work, genuine attention is all you can ask for, and they delivered.

Are there any areas where they can improve?

None.