Sunflower Lab

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a manufacturing unit of packaging bags in India with around 500 workers. It is a family-owned company. I'm the chairman. My father manufactures the orders, and I distribute them.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sunflower Lab?

I wanted to make my life easier. Before, I had a hard time remembering to give tasks to my employees and tracking orders, containers, and quotations. We needed seven or eight modules developed. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Sunflower Lab did software development using AWS [Amazon Web Services] as the platform. The software generates automatic quotations. Once I enter a client’s data, it automatically gives them quotations based on whatever they’re using either monthly or every two months. They automatically send data and a price to the client. I don’t know their team size, but I always speak to Yash [Patel, co-founder].

How did you come to work with Sunflower Lab?

My uncle recommended them.

How much have you invested with Sunflower Lab?

I’ve paid $44,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The first time I started with them was in October/November 2016. It is still ongoing since I want to add more modules. If everything goes right at the end of the year, I want them to visit my factory in India. We are planning to develop something to make my life easier in the manufacturing unit. Right now, they are only helping with the distribution, which is in New Jersey. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or impact of the engagement?

So far, I’m satisfied with Sunflower Lab’s work. If an issue comes up, I can call them at any time, and it’s resolved within 24 hours. I think I can replace two employees because of the software. This year, I had to pay them more, but after one or two years, I’m going to start saving money because I won’t have to pay for two more employees.

How did Sunflower Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

There’s one person from their technical team who I can call at any time if I need anything (and vice versa).

What did you find most impressive about Sunflower Lab?

I’m not a technical person. All I know is my specialty of marketing and product development. Although they’re developing the software, if I need help with something else besides the project, they are always happy to help me.

Are there any areas Sunflower Lab could improve?

Maybe in the future, I will have some suggestion for improvement, but I don't feel there's anything they could improve right now. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Michael: New Media Marketing is a full-scale, turnkey marketing and advertising agency which specializes in digital advertising and development for communication tools like websites, social media, and email. I am the president of the company. Barbara Jordan [Respondent 2] is the account executive for many of our projects with Sunflower Lab.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Sunflower Lab?

Michael: Sunflower Lab has been our digital arm for heavy-duty programming and development of both websites and apps for the last seven years. We utilize Sunflower Lab when we need to go outside of our capabilities.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

Michael: Sunflower Lab has developed multiple apps for us, including startup ones. One of our bigger projects was a national account for Slant/Fin, on which Sunflower Lab was instrumental in developing the architecture and programming of the company's estimator, called Hydro-Master.

Barbara: The app is used by technicians in the field in order to calculate all the required information, and come up with a suggested baseboard and boiler.

Michael: We have used Sunflower Lab for backend programming on some websites. We often handle the Photoshop design and have their team make it all work according to the architecture we came up with. Sunflower Lab has provided technical support and helped us set up our servers. We're a smaller, frontend company, while Sunflower Lab specializes in technical work.

We have worked on standard HTML, PHP, JavaScript, and Joomla products. Sunflower Lab has been involved with the custom programming needed for making things work. They go further into more complex programming, but these have been our basic needs.

Once Sunflower Lab is assigned a job, they will become part of the client team for us. Throughout the year, we will have updates, fixes, and maintenance. We could have up to 10 different clients with which we involve Sunflower Lab in any given year.

How did you come to work with Sunflower Lab?

Michael: I found Sunflower Lab through another vendor that had been bought out. Our first project with them was done in a matter of a week. It was imperative that it would go live in time, and that we could fix the work done by another programmer. We would lose the account if Sunflower Lab couldn't do it, and they came through. They pulled a miracle. They did a ton of overtime during the holiday season but they made it all happen.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

Michael: Sunflower Lab has a $150,000-$200,000 cost per year, depending on the number of projects at any given time. Our Slant/Fin app project had a $50,000 cost and ran for eight months, while smaller websites will cost closer to $5,000.

Sunflower Lab has also helped us with Google API work, namely locators which integrated with Google Maps. These projects cost closer to $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Michael: We started working with Sunflower Lab around six years ago in December. Sunflower Lab has a maintenance contract with around three of our clients, which means that they provide a year-round team for those companies.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Michael: Sunflower Lab has pulled through. I cannot say enough about that. I've worked with different programmers over the last 20 years and Sunflower Lab is a different breed. They treat the work professionally.

Everything works, but what we will set out to do and what will be delivered will always be different. Programming is never a linear A-to-Z process. There are spins, gyrations, and changes based on functionalities and thematic shifts. Sunflower Lab's ability to deliver functional solutions on budget and on time is the biggest metric.

Barbara: If we have an issue, or if there's something that the client doesn't like, Sunflower Lab will be ready and willing to offer another solution. We've never had any major problems with them.

How did Sunflower Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

Michael: I usually have meetings with Sunflower Lab's owner, who has been the one in charge of scope discussions and making estimates. From there, I am assigned a project manager who oversees the day-to-day development. We've also worked with third-party software for debugging things and keeping track of the workflow. Sunflower Lab's owner checks the work from a QC level, making sure that everything is going well. We then have big meetings at the end, reviewing how everything has been performing.

What distinguishes Sunflower Lab from other providers?

Barbara: Sunflower Lab is a partner in problem-solving. We may have an idea of what we want something to do, but Sunflower Lab will work with us in finding alternatives. There's always a negotiation, which is part of the game, but when Sunflower Lab is trying to solve a problem, they'll go the extra mile. They don't even really charge for the countless hours necessary for that.

Is there anything Sunflower Lab could have improved or done differently?

Michael: We always want things done cheaper, but Sunflower Lab has even been competitive in this regard. I've priced them out multiple times, and Sunflower Lab gave me the best offer constantly. I can't say that I would change something about the collaboration. I wish that they were more local, but we've been good at working via GoToMeeting and other tools.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Vigor Workouts started out as a website where we used a survey and video system to record people’s physical assessments. From that information, we would create monthly tailored workout plans for that person. I’m the COO. I manage all the personal trainers on staff.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sunflower Lab?

We wanted to create an integrated members’ website and an app.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We needed an app that was able to communicate with the website so the user could get the same information from either one. We needed a messaging feature to be able to communicate. Parts of the app have graphing and areas where the user can input their own information that will then integrate into the graph automatically. We needed to have access to the platform so that our employees could upload exercises to our library. I am new to the coding world, but they were great at explaining things.

How did you come to work with Sunflower Lab?

Our CEO found them. We were trying to find someone who could do what we needed and stay within our budget. Many companies were charging $250,000 just to get started, which was not feasible for us as a startup. One of the companies that we looked at that was too expensive for us referred us to Sunflower Lab. They seemed very confident that they could do what we wanted. We looked at some of their work, and it seemed like they were a fit for us. We had a few conversations over the phone with them, and everything seemed to fall into place.

How much have you invested with Sunflower Lab?

We have spent approximately $100,000 on our relationship with Sunflower Lab.

What is the status of this engagement?

We have been working with them for two years, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The first system where we would do assessments over the internet and provide exercises was the beta testing in personal training. We plan to fully launch the app in May because we’re waiting on certifications to be able to branch into physical therapy, which was our goal from the beginning. Our CEO is a Doctorate of Physical Therapy student at USC, and he has to do an internship, so we’ve been working on presentations of our product for the company where he works. Before we got the presentation ready, they did a Google search on him and found links to what we were doing. They’re trying to work with us to switch what they have in their system over to ours because they checked the app out, and they like it much more than other products already available in the field.

How did Sunflower Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

We had been using a system called Basecamp within our own company, but when we started with Sunflower, they introduced us to Slack, and we now use that for all of our communication. They also use Google Documents so that we are all able to edit the same page at the same time. Any updates are loaded on Google Docs Spreadsheets, and we can add comments and questions.

What did you find most impressive about Sunflower Lab?

They are very honest, which is why I keep using them. I’ve never felt like I’ve been taken advantage of. Every conversation we’ve had has been very open and frank, which is very important for someone like me who is non-technical.

Are there any areas Sunflower Lab could improve?

In the very beginning, there was a slight language barrier because the owner and a lot of the employees are Indian. Within the first week, I was able to get used to how they communicated, and everything was fine after that.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

3 Key Collective is a small startup based in Sparta, New Jersey that builds mobile apps.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sunflower Lab?

We wanted to make an app called eLeague to organize pickup games and recreational sports events.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We wanted a clean user interface and a game section that would be easy to navigate. We needed a backend that would save information about the users because eventually, we want to be able to pinpoint what sports are the most popular in which state. That information can be valuable to a sporting goods store. Our first build was just for iOS applications, and then we moved onto Android later. We want it to be available for all mobile platforms.

How did you come to work with Sunflower Lab?

We looked at several different development companies and got quotes from them. Sunflower Lab was the first to help us and stayed connected with us. They had a price point that we could afford.

How much have you invested with Sunflower Lab?

We have spent $50,000 on the project so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in the fall of 2015, and the work is ongoing. The MVP [minimum viable product] was completed in one month.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

When we first built the app, we launched without issue to the iPhone. We didn’t market very much but were still growing at about 5–10 users a day. Right now, we have 2,000 users on the app. We first marketed the app only through Facebook and Instagram but recently created a YouTube channel to document tournaments and other events. The app is steadily growing by word of mouth and the “invite friends” feature.

How did Sunflower Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

They are very efficient. We communicate through email, text, phone calls, and occasionally in person. My partner and I have day jobs as we work on this startup, so Yash Patel, the CTO, has been willing to meet with us at odd hours whenever we’re available. Whenever we have an issue, the updates are made within a day or two. There’s always good communication, and they’ve managed everything really well. They use Google Sheets to show updates and the status of tasks.

What did you find most impressive about Sunflower Lab?

Communication is their strength, especially for me as I’m a non-technical founder. It’s great to be in constant contact with them and be updated on what’s happening currently with the app. We come up with new ideas, and they let us know what they’ll need to be able to fully execute those ideas. The app came out beautifully. Everything functions well. I’m happy with the whole process.

Are there any areas Sunflower Lab could improve?

Nothing stands out as a flaw in the process.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Accurate Agent is a real estate technologies company. I try to solve data input problems and data real estate information syndication and things like that. I hired Sunflower Lab to help me code and create the first app that does all that. I am the founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sunflower Lab?

They helped me with the app. They did an iOS and Android app.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I can’t speak too much on coding but I can say that they were very good at helping me overcome that. I used Google Docs in rudimentary forms to put together what I wanted. They were great at helping me figure out designs and translating that into what that would look like for an app. They’re very self-sufficient. They did a lot on their own. They would show it to me and ask for feedback, so that was helpful.

How did you come to work with Sunflower Lab?

I think someone just brought to my attention that they were a local company who built apps at a cheaper price than some larger companies.

How much have you invested with Sunflower Lab?

[Confidential].

What is the status of this engagement?

We started three years ago at the beginning of the summer. Like May or June 2013. I have been working periodically back and forth with them. They have a great thing where I can give them what I want, and they’ll give it back and they won’t charge anymore. They’re very direct in how they charge you. They’re very clear in what they’re going to do and how much it’s going to cost up front. They don’t sneak in any hidden prices or anything like that. The app launched about a year or two ago. They’ve been great on helping me keep it updated. If I ever want to do trouble fixing, they handle re-uploading the files so I can get live on the app store and things like that.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

I’ve been getting a lot of good feedback. We launched the app at a real estate convention two years ago. I attended the following year. The customers were receptive. We’re up over 1,100 downloads now. They did four or five updates over that time.

How did Sunflower Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated through email basically 100% of the time. The only things we had to use that you’re required to use when making an app were things like iTunes Connect. They were proficient in that. They knew how Google Play works. They knew how iTunes Connect works. They helped me get through that very easily. I don’t know what programs they used to code. I was working with a project manager to start me off. He was also somewhat of a developer. He is the local guy. I live in New Jersey and he lived in Hillsborough, NJ. We’re very close. We could meet in person. He would often relay me to the developer who was outsourced to India and I got to talk to him directly. They were very good at managing that. If I ever didn’t want to talk directly to the coder, the project manager would handle it all.

What did you find most impressive about Sunflower Lab?

They were very good with time. They were always on time. Whenever I could speak to them, they were eager to listen to me. They never told me they couldn’t talk, or that I had to wait, or they had to help someone else. They were responsive. That was a huge blessing.

Are there any areas Sunflower Lab could improve?

They work in email and it can get confusing when multiple email chains start with other people. If they had a bit more organization in how they communicate, that would be great. But I can realize that falls on me as well.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We do ratings for people and businesses based off of the referrals two degrees of separation from you or closer. I am the owner.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sunflower Lab?

We needed development, obviously, and a feeling of confidentiality, which is my biggest concern of anything, which they were able to do. They built and are continuing to work on our apps on iOS and Android.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

To be honest with you, I have zero background in that world. It was really refreshing to me that they were able to take pictures that I drew. I made some wireframes myself using Dynamic Panels and some other software, but for the most part, they were able to take what was in my head and conceived to paper and turn it into a working product. It exceeded my expectations.

How did you come to work with Sunflower Lab?

My roommate does apps over here at Nationwide Insurance. He sent me over to Pillar, which is another technology company in Columbus, but their apps are all $1 million-plus. Someone from Pillar shot me over to Sunflower Labs, someone they outsource work to. It was a referral of a referral.

How much have you invested with Sunflower Lab?

We have invested $60,000 with 5% bonus equity depending on certain milestones.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began work in April 2016. It’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We're finishing the messaging part right now. If you send a message, it goes to someone's email. Once that's completed, then I'll really market it the way it should be. From the standpoint of some developers I've had look at it, it runs smoothly. No one's found any major issues or anything like that.

How did Sunflower Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed very well. I haven't had any communication issues. We use Trello for the most part. That's worked out really well. Then we also have a Slack channel, but we don't use that too much. I'm partial to Trello by this time with them.

Sunflower Labs has two partners, from my understanding; Ronak Patel and Yash Patel. Ronak's in Hilliard, Ohio, which is a suburb of Columbus. Yash lives in New Jersey, so I talked mostly with Yash, who would do the design and overview. Ronak's more on the financial side; he's a developer as well. Then I'd deal with a project manager, who's over in India. It was a mix of Yash in New Jersey and the project manager in India. I felt like I had a lot of control over things, too, saying, “Hey, this is what I want. Let's see where you have it in a month from now.” Sometimes, we'd talk twice a week; sometimes we'd only talk once every other week; sometimes we'd talk every day for three weeks.

What did you find most impressive about Sunflower Lab?

Being patient, because I'm not a patient person. They were patient with me and would tell me what I need. Again, this is not my background at all. I know that all the pieces work, just not how they work, and they're patient with me. Customer service was great more than anything.

I love the work that went into it, how much they cared about it and wanted to make it right. If they thought it should go one way and I thought it should go another way, we'd have live discussions about what I wanted, and this is why they think, in the technical world, it should be this way. We'd go back and forth. Sometimes I'd say yes, but sometimes I said, “No, we're going with what I said.” We'd end it there, but we'd always have a discussion about it, so I appreciate that.

Are there any areas Sunflower Lab could improve?

I would say that some of the work is outsourced to India, and I probably would've liked to have known. From midnight to 8 o'clock, sometimes I was going back and forth with someone from India working on it. I didn't mind that; when things come my way, I'd rather get it knocked out. By knowing up front that there's that option, then maybe I could've scheduled my next seven months off of having a different type of sleep schedule.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

The company is a mobile veterinary practice. I am a co-founder and owner.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sunflower Lab?

I needed a software program to run my practice. The existing software programs didn’t do what I needed. It’s a pretty niche business. Even with the profession, I’m pretty subspecialized and the software programs are just too generic.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I had to have a way to input clientele along with their pets, including all of the information that pertained to the pet, the illness, what was going on with them, tracking sources, etc. If a client calls me, I need to be able to quick search and pull up their medical record. I had to be able to track controlled substance logs and drugs that have been used for those pets. Additionally, I have a cremation service that I own, so I had to tie that in to be able to track the pets and where they were in the process when clients called me. That way I knew every stage of the animal’s status.

This was done from scratch. I’m very familiar with the veterinary software programs, the electronic medical record programs, but not with what coding languages Sunflower Lab used. What they built replaced a combination of Excel spreadsheets and Google docs that I had pieced together and we had been using for a few years. I had tried using a program called DVMax. I had tried using a program called Cornerstone. I had tried using a program called AVImark. They just didn’t do what I needed.

How did you come to work with Sunflower Lab?

I just went online and searched for programmers that could write software. I reached out to a handful and ended up receiving from the sublime to the ridiculous in terms of the time and the cost. The range was anywhere from $5,000 to $150,000. It was just unbelievable how it was all over the place. I was mainly dealing with Yash Patel [Principal, Sunflower Lab] at that time. He seemed efficient and a no-nonsense kind of person. He gave me his opinion, and his pricing was not the cheapest but by no means as ridiculous as the $150,000, so I went with them. It’s been a very positive experience. It’s been a pleasure to work with them and they’re very responsive.

How much have you invested with Sunflower Lab?

I think it’s probably about $15,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together about 18 months ago. They’re still providing support. As things go on, I’ll think of something else I want to be done. We had two phases of app updates and I have a third phase I need to do reasonably soon.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

It did what I wanted in terms of streamlining, and eliminated the redundancy in the previous program I was using. It’s way easier for my employees and significantly more efficient and streamlined. My clients have never been any the wiser.

How did Sunflower Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

Once the project had been outlined, he stepped out of the way and another manager stepped in. He and I communicated largely online by email and Skype just to get the project nailed down.

What did you find most impressive about Sunflower Lab?

I think their flexibility to change work orders. If I didn’t like the way something was going and how it was turning out, I would tell them, and they were very responsive to change and switching and understanding exactly what I wanted.

Are there any areas Sunflower Lab could improve?

I wish they had a 24-hour emergency type response. Given that part of their business is based in India, there’s a time lapse. Sometimes it works out well because I wake up in the morning and there’d be a whole bunch of work done, which allowed me to work on stuff during the day when they were sleeping. So that didn’t bother me at all. I’d say just the after-hours support I think might be an important addition. It bothered me when I was down and had work issues. I had to wait until their daytime to determine whether it was a network issue or a program issue.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My partner and I thought of the idea about two years ago. We came up with a chat concept of batons, originally named the business Baton and then we switched it to Bit at the front, after finding out that Baton was already taken. I’m a co-founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sunflower Lab?

We wanted to revolutionize the way people group chat. What we found is that when people group chat right now, a lot of the content regarding media, pictures or videos, gets filtered away after you send it to your friends in a group on the iOS platform. Let's say you, and I were in a group, and you sent me a picture or a video and then we began talking and sending text messages back and forth, that picture or video immediately is scrolled all the way to the top of the chat and then you lose it.

We wanted to create a way where you could do everything and make a group story together that's live; a live action that's going on now. We built an algorithm based around that whole concept and created Baton. If you're the one carrying the baton at any moment, you get to share that media with your group; they get to view it, they grab the baton, attach it to whoever else they want in the group. That system of sharing, when passing the ownership of the baton, it creates the seamless group story that comes to life, especially with large groups of people. It's really exciting.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We were searching through a bunch of companies. We were choosing based on price, where the company is located, we wanted English-speaking, and we wanted to be able to work with our company during our hours. Sunflower provided one of the best set ups for us. They were easy to find. They were located in New Jersey. We're based in New York right now; that's where I am. My partner is in Louisiana. With our time difference and us being able to meet with Yash [Patel, Founder] and his team at Sunflower Labs, everything worked out perfectly. I'd say their price, their time, the amount of effort they put into the pre-planning, puts them in a good place when we were trying to figure out who to choose.

I would pretty much label everything out on a PowerPoint for them, the design that we thought would work best as well as the user flow and the algorithm. I shared that with their team, and we reviewed it over Skype, and we walked through each page. Then they came back to me with their feedback and positive changes that they would also make to our algorithm or to how everything works to make the user experience flow better. It was almost like we were partnering together. It didn't feel like I was hiring a company; it felt more like a partnership than anything else. Especially with regards to the pre-planning because the algorithm is such a difficult process to think about.

Right now, we're just on iOS, but we have talked about Android. We got pricing from the Sunflower team because we've worked well, they know the code, they know everything behind it. We didn't know how to go about making an app. What was helpful was that they walked us through everything from advice to getting on a server to eventually showing us what kind of code they were doing on the backend to make the app work.

We needed backend and frontend development as well as just the user flow, user interface, and design. All of those things incorporated into the app. They would give us advice on how to serve our application and website and how everything works when we submit to the app store. They were very helpful and knowledgeable about the whole process.

We just launched our first version in May, and we realized very quickly that it worked the way we wanted, but when we had our test subjects using it, we didn't promote it. It was a little too difficult to understand because we had much more restrictions in the first algorithm, so we went back and worked with Yash's team, and we came up with a much simplified version of what we originally rolled out. We've launched that one this past weekend and so far, it's done very well with our testing.

We're about to launch it at a tailgate this weekend as well. We both went to Penn State University, and we had about a couple of hundred people come to this tailgate, so we're thinking about getting our feet wet and seeing how it does on a large scale.

The algorithm is restrictive to whoever is in possession of it. For example, if you're presenting your screen on any platform, whether you use Skype for Business or whether you're using WebEx or one of those platforms and you have the ball, or you're the one presenting, you can share that presentership to anybody else you like in the group. Then they have control over what everybody else sees in the group at that moment in time.

The ways ours works, it's not live, but you can share the possession with someone else for a selected period. If your group has a two-minute time limit, I can give you the baton at that moment and picture on a track you're running with it; you're going with it. Whatever picture you take or whatever video you take next, gets put onto the timeline and syndicated with the time stamped, so it all gets fed through and you can watch back every post that's made in that group.

How did you come to work with Sunflower Lab?

Through an Internet search.

How much have you invested with Sunflower Lab?

About $30,000 to $40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Sunflower Labs about two years ago; I would say, and it's an ongoing relationship.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

I can't speak to it yet because we've only done testing with the first launch and we didn't do a mass one because we didn't want to deter people from using the app until it was flushed out and all the details were in there.

I would say the fact that our website has generated a lot of traffic - we've got about 150 unique visitors a day in the past month or so - that's pretty good. The audience is definitely building. It's dormant right now, but we hope it's a dormant volcano about to explode.

How did Sunflower Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

We've recently been using Trello, and that's something that the Sunflower team proposed to us since our first phase because there was a lot of back and forth. We needed a place to be simplified regarding our feedback. We were using email in the beginning and phone calls. Trello has been successful so far and expedited the process, so I thank their team for throwing that out there as an option.

I have a project manager from their side, and whenever I emailed him or sent him a note over Skype at any hour of the day, he's got back to me in a few hours. He's very responsive.

What did you find most impressive about Sunflower Lab?

For them, it's getting things out the door on time, even with strict deadlines; that's a big thing. Being upfront with us about their pricing model and what they expect things to take regarding their timelines also. Another thing is coming back to us with innovative ideas that help our platform more than we could have thought of. That's something that has come from their side and my project manager that has helped us. Like I said before, partnering for success. You can't do that unless they truly love the product and they're actually using it. That's what you get with this team.

Yash has been amazing in talking us through his business model and idea for where his company is going and that he's only going to take on projects that he sees are going further.

Are there any areas Sunflower Lab could improve?

When you're working with people who have English as their second language, sometimes some things in the app can get spelled wrong, or there are errors like punctuation errors. It's a little tweak that I would make possible. Besides that, everything has been very good from the backend code and how everything works. That's been executed extremely well.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments is a non-profit organization of the local governments surrounding the District of Columbia, so it's DC and the surrounding suburban cities and counties in Maryland and Virginia. We have a variety of regional planning efforts with regards to the environment, transportation, homeland security, and so on.

My area is the environment department, and specifically water resources. One of our programs is called the Community Engagement Campaign. It's a committee formed of water and wastewater utilities in our region that are doing public outreach and messaging about the safety of tap water and promoting drinking tap water, and also about addressing wastewater issues.

I am an environmental planner.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sunflower Lab?

They devised a phone call. We partnered with this organization called TapIt in New York. TapIt in New York was the organization who chose to go with Sunflower Labs and create a mobile app. Our region's TapIt program is built off the national TapIt program, which has signed up businesses and government agencies and so on that want to provide reusable water bottles and access to refilling stations to the public. The public can come into a business or restaurant and refill their bottle and they're not expected or obligated to buy anything.

What we wanted was a phone app for the public to go on this app and locate businesses where they can go and fill up their water bottles. If someone is out biking or running and they're thirsty, they can pull up their app and see that they can go, for example, to this restaurant here on the corner.

TapIt was started in New York and they started working with Sunflower Lab. Then, TapIt dissolved and we took over the program for our region and called it TapIt Metro DC. We needed to revise the phone app to make it local only to our region and to fix it because we needed to load locations and everything from our backend. That's where our partnership with Sunflower started, revising the app to be Version 2.0.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They had to do coding for the app. It's a GPS-based app, so it has to be able to pull in latitude and longitude locations for all of our businesses that we're partnering with. The app is available on iOS and Android.

Before the 2.0 revision, you couldn't search by a business name, by neighborhood, or section of the city and find what's right around you. It used to be that it was only for where you are in the here and now, based on the location on your phone. We wanted to be able to search anywhere, for instance, “well I'm going to be heading off to Silver Spring, Maryland, what is there? If I'm on a long bike ride, can I fill my bottle there?” We wanted people to be able to look ahead and search by location and business name, so we added those features to the app. It took some doing but it works now.

How much have you invested with Sunflower Lab?

Around $4,200.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project was from February 2015 to June 2015. The project is complete.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The best reference would just be the reviews we've received of the app. There haven't been a lot. I don't know what the stats are in terms of how many people have downloaded it. What happens is that it's kind of a seasonal app where in the summer people would download it, but often they don't keep it on their phone. That's not really a reflection on Sunflower, that's more the utility of our app overall to people.

Most of the reviews were positive and said it worked well. The first version, when it was initially designed for New York, had a lot reports of it crashing on people, and there were very poor reviews. That's why we said we needed to revise it and make it a more robust and user-friendly app. Now, the reviews have been pretty positive from the few that we've received.

How did Sunflower Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

Our organization always operates with purchase orders including full details of the task and the costs. That took a few months’ work out in writing. It wasn't very efficient actually. That was communicated via email. Most of the time, we communicated via email until it got to the point when we received the beta version. We tested it and we'd find some bugs, and then we'd communicate that over the phone. We'd often take a screenshot of how the app was appearing on our phone because I have an Android and another person at work has an iPhone, so we were able to send then screenshots from both versions. Then we'd have to communicate over the phone quite a bit to straighten out the bugs.

What did you find most impressive about Sunflower Lab?

They did understand what our upgrade needs were and they put in more time than they were originally contracted for because they stuck it out, to make sure it was working the way we needed it to. I would say what distinguishes them is their ability to continue to work at designing a product until we were happy with it in the end.

Are there any areas Sunflower Lab could improve?

I think they were new to dealing with organizations like ours that demand written-out paperwork before work begins. Their invoicing went very smoothly but the initial contract was a little challenging. Having a really good system of contracting would be one way to improve.

Initially, I would say they were dragging their heels a little to have some phone conversations. There's basically two people in the business. We initially worked with one person but then we were referred to a second person, and he was very responsive and helpful. He was the actual designer, I think. When we started spelling out some of the initial bugs, just in the beta version, he was able to understand what we were talking about and address them.

In the end, they were effective but it took a little while to get there.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Groove Productions is an event production company. We produce events in the dance industry all over the United States. They include competitions, conventions, and workshops. We’re one of the larger firms in our industry and we’re growing rapidly. We’re going on our sixth year of business.

I’m the Chief Executive Officer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sunflower Lab?

We had a patchwork of software and websites, and different applications we were using for different things that were really primitive and not integrated whatsoever. We worked with Sunflower Lab a lot, and we’re actually still working with them to integrate almost all of our systems. Some of them are for registering people for our events; some of them are front-end websites for marketing; some of them are onsite local software that we use for scoring and administering onsite event criteria and things we need to get done at the event. We’ve been working with them on that process for the last year and a half. They started working with us on our mobile app in January of 2015, and when they started working on our full integration, we dropped our previous web developer and a few other people and we pushed everything under the Sunflower umbrella.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed for us first our mobile app on iOS as well as Android. The release of that was delayed because we actually were attempting to integrate it into an older system. As we started going through the process, we realized this wasn’t practical and instead we rebuilt the system with Sunflower Lab. That process got held off not by anything that had to do with Sunflower, but just an internal decision we had to make for efficiency, for the future of our company, and what was going to be most viable for us.

We then built our registration system, which is just a site that allows us to collect data from our clients, allows them to register for our events, pay for our events, and view their results and their documentation before and after our events. It’s also a staff management platform for us that allows us to give all of our employees their own login so they can see their information for what events they’re working, their travel details, and all that kind of stuff. That’s all built on the .NET platform. It’s integrated with everything else that we have.

The next big system that we’re working on right now is a local system that allows us to check in our entries at our event, to score our events, and to check people in onsite; they register online, and we check them in at our events. That syncs with our online application as well as our mobile application. That’s the part we’re on right now, synchronizing the local process that we have going on at our events with the online process before and after for registration and then delivering post-event content.

I would say 20% of what they did for us was client-facing; our client-facing website as well as our mobile app. Everything else is operational and for human resources. Our employees all have their logins. That’s how we track their medical benefits and their salaries. Through that portal, employees receive their documentation and our administrative team keeps track of some client data as well as employee scheduling, travel, etc. We tried a few integrations along the way, and in the end, most of what we did was completely custom because we had such specific needs.

How did you come to work with Sunflower Lab?

I found them online. I was doing some comparison shopping and some review reading. It was a site that compared some developers in the Northeast to work on a mobile app. That’s specifically what I was looking for, mobile app development. Yash [Patel, Director] had some great reviews. They were in our area, so he offered to come meet up with me. We met for lunch and we talked a little bit about what we were interested in doing. We got along well, so we moved forward with just the mobile app, and then once we were really satisfied with that, we moved on to the rest of the project.

How much have you invested with Sunflower Lab?

We have spent $180,000 to $250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

It has been ongoing since January 2015.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We certainly have saved a lot of administrative time. We’ve grown a lot while we’ve been developing these tools, and we very much tried to develop something we would require in the future and not just something that our current needs required. We probably avoided hiring two or three more full-time admins because of the system that they have developed. Our old systems were very redundant, very inconsistent, and required a lot of human knowledge. Now, we’ve cut so much of that out and our errors have gone down significantly.

We used to track the hours the billing department spent chasing people down for money. We were much smaller then and they were spending between 15 and 25 hours a week just tracking people down for bills trying to receive payments. Sunflower developed an automated email system for us that basically just harasses people with reminders until they get their bills paid before the event. If it’s the day before the event, they’re getting an email to remind them that they have to pay their bill or they won’t be able to attend the event every two hours. I think our billing department reported less than one hour a week this year for trying to capture payments, so that’s been huge. It a great feeling to not have to chase your clients down for money. That’s been a huge success story.

How did Sunflower Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

The two owners of the company are primarily involved in sales, and they oversee the projects in a very light capacity. They assign a project manager to your team. I have been dealing with just the one project manager. Occasionally, my sales rep will come in or the owner of the company will come in just to check in on things, or if there is a complex issue that involves multiple integrations, he’ll chime in a little bit as well. They’ve designated one form of communication; for us it was Slack, but they offered all different forms of communication. That was pretty much chosen at my preference.

We have two developers working on our project. I don’t communicate with them at all. I’m just dealing with the project manager and he’s great. He’s super accessible at almost all times. Anytime we have a major issue, it’s usually resolved within 24 hours. They’re overseas. The sales reps are in the US and the project manager and the developers are all in India, but we worked out pretty well. He usually works till about two in the afternoon our time, which is great. The workflow has been really good.

What did you find most impressive about Sunflower Lab?

I’ll give our project manager an idea and he’ll ask me why, and he’ll walk me through the logic of why that’s the way I wanted to do it. Then he’ll basically say, “Okay, have we thought of it this way? Could we approach it with a different logic?” He’ll come at it from another angle, and sometimes that third-party perspective of somebody who’s not super embedded in your business can maybe give you a better way of doing things. They’ve been really good at not only helping automate and streamline our current processes, but they have also been really good at affecting our processes and giving us ideas as to how we could work better. That’s been really valuable.

By the same token, once in a while I have things that I don’t quite have the time to get into the details of, and if I need it executed quickly, they’ll do it. They’re super responsive as well. I would say those would be the two major things that Sunflower does well: looking at our processes not just from a development angle but from a business point of view, and two would be just an incredible responsiveness. When we do need something and we need it quick, it’s usually not an issue.

Are there any areas Sunflower Lab could improve?

Yash could probably use a full-time billing company that did his own billing. Sometimes he’ll forget to send me a bill one month and I’ll get two the next month. It’s not really a big deal; it doesn’t bother me. I’m sure he could use some help administratively, but it’s never been a problem for us.