A5 Mobile Development

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CTO of a Danish company specializing in physical and digital products for Golf Clubs.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire A5 Mobile Development?

For a new product, we had earlier had an Android application developed for a Payment Device. This application needed to be enhanced with a host of new features, while also needing some changes and finalization of existing features.

What were your goals for this project?

To provide the market with a modern and highly usable system for paying for golf balls at driving ranges.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Found the developer and the company on upworks.com.

Describe the project in detail.

Enhancing an existing Android app (older platform). Finalize application for deployment.

What was the team composition?

A5 had all responsibility for Payment Device SW - other teams took care of backend and consumer mobile application.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The driving range system version 1 is almost ready for market deployment. We will evaluate first use and adapt to user feed-back. At the same time we already know we need to handle mobile payment in different other countries as well as a new platform from device vendor later.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Workflow with A5 was effective and always helpful and straight to the point.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their enthusiasm and technical abilities. They also showed a great desire to help when facing urgent matters - even outside normal working hours.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not really :)

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and owner of an aviation company. We provide support and development services within Europe.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with A5 Mobile Development?

We needed help with customer-facing software development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Currently, they design and develop software and web applications in Java for desktops and mobile. They do everything. I only talked them through my ideas and they do the rest.

They also do development for a PostgreSQL platform which is a grand server for the tech log. Software development is JavaScript, CSS, and HTML5. They also do software support and maintenance

We also did another project with them called “golf café”, an iOS and Android app where you can order food and beverages on a golf course and get feedback from the restaurant or the food store. I had the idea and showed them what I wanted to do with it. They did all the development and some add-ons with cool features.

For example, there’s a GPS feature where restaurant owners can see all the registered users on the golf course and users can define their own food and drink menu on a web page. Users can also get a signal when you’re at a specific tee where you have 20 minutes to go to the next food station and that it’s now the best time to order.

It rings a bell at the restaurant and they confirm the order. The feedback goes back to the app once the order has been finished and is ready for pickup. There’s a notification on the app and you can also pay in advance and put deposits on.

What is the team composition?

For the tech log, there are two people. For the golf app, there’s Olga (CEO, A5 Mobile Development] and one Android and one iOS developer.

How did you come to work with A5 Mobile Development?

I know Olga from her time in Frankfurt when she worked for a gaming company. She went back to Ukraine and founded her own company. We’ve been in touch for a while and when we needed support for Java development, for our tech logbook, I contacted her and we decided to work together from there.

How much have you invested with them?

For the tech log, we’ve spent 160,000 euros so far (approximately 181,000 USD). For the golf app, we’ve spent 25,000 euros (approximately 28,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in December 2017 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It was a very good decision to hire Olga because she’s performing very well. Nobody is perfect and won’t give anyone a 10, but she’s definitely a 9 or 9.5. It’s really easy to measure success when you do biweekly sprints and daily calls. If someone doesn’t perform on time, it was easy to tell. There weren’t many situations where they couldn’t finish on time.

Without them, we couldn’t have delivered the software on time. I’ve never regretted hiring them. I’m also happy with the golf app. I had some users test it and they’re completely happy with what they see so far. It’s functional, easy to understand, and intuitive.

How did A5 Mobile Development perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is a nine out of 10. We use agile development and they do the sprint planning. They get work from us on what pieces they have to develop for the entire sprint. We talk every day for a couple of minutes and we have biweekly sprints.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m impressed by the speed at which they deliver and the quality of their work. Their price is unbeatable.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Some of their staff could stand to improve their communication skills, but as long as Olga is there, she can translate.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to be friendly. They’re nice people. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of LIB-IT DMS GmbH. We’re creating and developing an enterprise information management system called Filero. It does document management, archiving, email archiving, and much more.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with A5 Mobile Development?

We had no knowledge of how to provide our clients with a macOS Filero platform. Filero is a tool that allows users to upload and download data from a PC to an archiving system. We needed someone to do a one-to-one recreation of our existing tools for macOS computers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

A5 Mobile Development conceived and completely created this macOS platform. It couldn’t be transported from Windows and had to be rewritten from scratch. We explained the functionality of the Windows tool, gave them the documentation, and then they created Filero for macOS.

What is the team composition?

We worked with one representative on this project.

How did you come to work with A5 Mobile Development?

We searched online for a company with enough knowledge of macOS software to achieve the goals we desired. They were the company we chose to go with.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested between $38,000–$44,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted from March 2015–February 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Everyone who has seen it has expressed that they love it. However, most of our customers use Windows, not macOS.

How did A5 Mobile Development perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management was perfect, I have no complaints. The representative was very communicative if there were any problems. We always stayed in contact, so I constantly knew the program’s status. She was very friendly and didn’t have a harsh tone.

Their team worked within the timeframe provided, which was great. Upon completion of the initial project, they developed additional releases.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I like how they designed the UI. We wanted the platform to resemble any regular macOS software. We didn’t know what that’d look like for Filero, but they understood and did a great job. They delivered a highly functional product and quickly fixed any bugs that arose.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing they could’ve done better. The representative and I both spoke different native languages, so we communicated in English. I am very happy with the company. I’d advise them to investigate the administrative side of their billing portal. There were some issues, but that’s not a reflection on A5 Mobile Development.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The more specific and informative you are from the beginning, the better they can perform the job. Let them know what's important to you. If you don’t, it’ll be difficult to achieve the desired results.