AirDev

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

I tested the lending platform with an existing user base and received nothing but positive reviews. The modular UI component looked great.

How did AirDev perform from a project management standpoint?

We defined milestones and deadlines in the scope document. Their team hits deadlines.

I relied on the project management tools AirDev provided. It’s easy to communicate with them.

Once they met a milestone, their team put together a script for user testing. That process worked well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their team was prepared to move quickly, and the products look good. I also trust their development team.

AirDev exercised a reasonable degree of flexibility in terms of changing elements. They put effort into the scope upfront, but I influenced scope changes. We were able to reach a reasonable solution that wrapped into part of the original scope.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We put a model together in excel to calculate the financial components. In hindsight, I wish we spent more time talking about the variables. Excel can be complicated, leaving room for error. However, I don’t necessarily blame them for that.

It would’ve been helpful to have more in-depth documentation or explainers of the application’s parts and how they interact with each other. Their team did provide documentation, but I went back and asked them for more specific features, which they gladly added.

This goes hand in hand with creating more thorough documentation. It would’ve helped to have a crash course in Bubble. There are tasks that I’d like to know how to do so I’m not consuming their time and energy with small fixes.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It’s important to make sure that you’re building a product that people will use. Put time into the scope documentation. If there’s anything that’s specific to your industry, invest more time to make sure everyone knows how it works.

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

They have always delivered what the promised and on the deadlines that were set. I don’t have any definitive ROI numbers because we’re trying to grow the users on the platform right now, but the feedback has been positive. It’s very challenging to go into the social network space since people are so used to the nice experiences that Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter provide. However, AirDev got the core functionality down, and users see that the platform does what it should be doing.

How did AirDev perform from a project management standpoint?

They perform well – I have had no problems with them. They’re always very responsive. We communicate through their internal portal. They’ve done a good job of letting me know what they can do right away or what might be part of a future build. The communication has been very good.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I would say the trust factor that I mentioned earlier sets them apart. I know they’ll be there for me if I have any bugs or challenges. They’ll be there with me throughout the journey; I won’t have to go out and find another agency, and they won’t disappear and take my money. 

The cost factor was also big. Building on a low-code platform is much more cost-effective than hiring a full-time software developer. There are obviously some tradeoffs there, but for what I’m trying to do right now, the cost factor, the speed of development, their overall responsiveness, and their ability to work with me and be a partner to me – they’re helping me to build something custom and unique to my needs, rather than just giving me a generic solution ¬– are all really great things that I see as differentiators for them. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

One small thing would be their distributed teams; sometimes, their product manager or software engineer is in a different time zone than me, so we’ll miss each other on comments. I think more clearly communicating upfront what time zone they’re in would help so that I know I need to send comments by a certain time and don’t miss two days of work instead of just one. For the most part, having people in different time zones isn’t an issue; it’s more just understanding where I, as the stakeholder, need to respond and understand their hours.

Any advice for potential customers?

Definitely have a very clear idea of what you want. The clearer you can be in terms of your instructions, product roadmap, and ideas that you want them to implement, the better. They’re here to execute on your idea and will obviously provide recommendations as they go, but they don’t ultimately own it; you do. The most value you’ll get out of the relationship is if you come with a very clear, defined product in mind, and then they’ll tell you what they can do, the cost, and the timeline. Don’t limit your imagination and objectives; bring it all to the table, and then AirDev will work with you to find that medium in terms of what can be accomplished on the platform.

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

In the beginning, when I was working with Vladimir, the team would send screenshots of how the website would look when it was built. If something looked different than I wanted, I told them and they changed it very quickly.

Upon completion, they asked me to run through and do heavy testing, which they did as well. There were very small bugs, as anyone would expect, but they fixed them promptly.

How did AirDev perform from a project management standpoint?

Vladimir was very patient even though we went back and forth many times. Their project management was excellent. Initially, we communicated by email. Once we decided to proceed, there was a portal on their website that was dedicated to this project. 

They met all of the deadlines. Additionally, AirDev worked very well from their location all while the Coronavirus pandemic was going on. None of that stopped them from meeting every deadline that we had discussed. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their ability to do whatever I wanted them to do was impressive. When I gave Vladimir all of my different requests, he told me that they could build anything I wanted as long as it didn’t cost me too much. Their strength is in not being just developers, but truly being partners throughout the entire process, helping to think through problems and solve them, and then build it.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I have no suggestions. They were very patient with me as a non-technical person. AirDev answered all of my questions and went out of their way to go back and fix elements that they could’ve charged me for. The team was always accommodating. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Speak to Vladimir or the project manager to think about how everything will work, what will work, and why it’ll work.

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

From a success metric standpoint, they completed the MVP. Now that the team has built the framework, I’m able to build on top of it and do what I need to do. The two teammates I worked with were incredibly friendly and helpful.

However, when they delivered the product to me, there were some elements that were leftover from the template that weren’t relevant to my app. So I had to sift through to find the elements that were important to me.

Overall, the app functions well, and the team did a lot of work to help me get it up and running. They answered questions and provided a lot of guidance. We’ve received positive feedback, and although there were a few bugs, the team managed to fix them.

How did AirDev perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed quite well. They could’ve done better from an expectation management standpoint as far as timelines. On their website, they billed the project as a one-week turnaround. However, we spent 2–3 weeks agreeing on the scope, and there was a delay in terms of starting the development because they booked it after the scoping was done. 

So, what I thought was going to be a couple of weeks ended up being more like a month and a half. I wasn’t on a time crunch, so it wasn’t too much of a problem. That said, they could’ve done a better job of clearly stating the timeline because it was frustrating not knowing.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Putting aside the project management side of the project, the team was actually able to deliver an app in a week, which was really nice. They were also very responsive. I put a lot of feedback into their system and they answered all of my questions.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’m probably at the lower end of their client scale because I’m sure they’re trying to deal the economy right now. At certain points throughout the project, it was a little hard to know what the next step was and what we were supposed to be doing.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I had a really clear scope for the project and a rough idea for the development. So, a lot of our interactions involved problem-solving different features. Coming in and knowing what I wanted made for a very smooth experience.