App & Flow

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of SmileML

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We provide conversational analytics using speech recognition and facial expression recognition.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire App & Flow to accomplish?

• Software architecture development
• Application development for the web app component of our commercial application
• Documentation

SOLUTION

How did you find App & Flow?

Referral

Why did you select App & Flow over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from App & Flow were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

App&flow lead the application development for the web component of our commercial app, Optic. Optic transcribes calls for individuals to see talk ratio and speaking rate as well as a running transcript. As opposed to meeting bots that join a call, Optic uses the microphone and system audio to capture the conversation so it's less invasive. 

App&flow held weekly update meetings, designed software architecture, and developed the web application. We pivoted once during the course of development from an electron application to a web application and App&flow was happy to make the change.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

After we launched the web application, we consistently add a couple hundred new users per month!

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

We used Asana to track tasks and progress. Items were delivered on-time and App&flow was very responsive to changes in project direction.

What was your primary form of communication with App & Flow?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Their responsiveness and ability to adapt was most impressive. App&flow was always upfront about the impacts of changes but were equally willing to take those changes on.

Are there any areas for improvement or something App & Flow could have done differently?

None

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a business development manager at a clothing measurement company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenges were you trying to address with App & Flow?

We had a prototype of a native application, and we wanted to switch everything to React Native.  

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

App & Flow is redoing our entire mobile app. Initially, we provided them with a list of features we wanted and showed them what the app looked like before; they saw our demo. After that, App & Flow started developing the new app. 

Within the app, users can create digital garments. For this feature, the app needs to connect to our existing API, so App & Flow has created an import flow. Now, there’s a backend portal connecting the backend and the API. The second main feature is the ability to compare items from the digital wardrobe to garments from our merchant partners. 

App & Flow has built all features related to our users’ accounts, digital wardrobe, onboarding, and instructions. The app works similarly on the merchants’ side, with inventory and account information. 

What was the team composition? 

We work with two teammates from App & Flow. 

How did you come to work with App & Flow?

I found them on Clutch, contacted them through email, and then had a call with the head of their team. From there, we met in person to discuss the project, and App & Flow made a proposal. We decided to work with them because they are React Native specialists.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $260,000 CAD (approximately $194,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement? 

We started working together in August 2022, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I am satisfied with the work App & Flow has done; everything has been very professional. The team is very transparent, giving us reports at the end of each week. 

How did App & Flow perform from a project management standpoint?

We don’t work with deadlines. Instead, we have a set of features and a rough idea of when each will be completed. We check App & Flow’s progress weekly, mainly communicating through Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m impressed with App & Flow’s transparency and communication skills. Talking to them is easy, and they’re always open about what they’re doing.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing they need to improve; everything is fine.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be straightforward and transparent with your expectations and communicate as much as possible. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm an executive of a seed-stage startup working on SaaS products and consumer applications.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire App & Flow, and what were your goals?

We hired App and Flow to rebuild the front-end of the mobile app from the ground up. When we pivoted to a desktop-first SaaS product, we had App & Flow build the front-end for this tool as well. Later we had them build the front-end for a consumer application, Hotlinks, which was built for mobile browsers.

SOLUTION

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

We were initially looking to hire several contractor developers with mobile/frontend experience, leveraging sites such as RemoteOK. When Charles reached out, we were impressed with their previous portfolio of work and it was also convenient that he represented a team of developers that could essentially "move as a pack" and help us knock out whatever work was needed.

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

They transitioned us to Expo, drastically cleaned up our react native code, and added reusable components wherever possible. They built out the front-end for the Alvy.ai MVP, working through several iterations based on user feedback. For our last project, Hotlinks, we used Next 13, Edge runtime, Prisma for schema and type generation, Kysely for DB querying, and Tailscale CSS.

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

3 members of the vendor's team worked with us, however Charles remained our primary contact throughout the entirety of the relationship. He was heavily involved in our day-to-day, working as part of our product trio, attending weekly standups, and providing inputs into both technical and product direction. The other 2 members of his team helped primarily from an executional perspective.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

App & Flow significantly cleaned up our mobile code, dramatically reducing bugs and ensuring parity with Figma designs. They also helped us bring an MVP to market for Alvy.ai in under 1 month, allowing us to quickly test a hypothesis.

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

Charles functioned as the point of contact and project manager, and as such he was very attentive to whatever requests came through from our end. He would then communicate the asks to his team and provide weekly updates (in writing and verbally) covering the progress made as well as the focus for the upcoming week. Most communication took place over Slack, and he was very responsive.

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

Working with App & Flow felt like we had additional members of the team. They fit in well with our team, contributed to the conversation, even if it wasn't directly related to what they were working on, and the clarity that was provided in each communication from them was incredibly professional and helpful.

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

This is feedback for our team as much as their team, but we could have provided more clarity around our priorities (e.g. speed vs. beauty) at times and it could have been helpful to have them push us for that clarity as well. It can be easy to get distracted by building a gorgeous product, but in a quick feedback loop time is of the essence.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CEO of Planned.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with App & Flow Development?

We wanted to improve our development team's velocity for our web-based app. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The developers from App & Flow Development primarily worked in React.js. They reasoned with our in-house team to increase our development teams — they essentially became a part of our team. For each project, they were provided documentation, but they were in charge of their specific piece of the product. They handled the development of the chat function and several aspects of the marketplace. I believe they also used SendGrid. 

The web application facilitates app rentals. On it, users can find spaces and suppliers they like and contact them. They can then book and pay for the service or space on the platform. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with 3–4 teammates. 

How did you come to work with App & Flow Development?

We were referred to App & Flow Development. 

How much have you invested with them?

We invested around $100,000 CAD (approximately $78,000 USD) with App & Flow Development. 

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement with App & Flow Development was from October 2020–April 2021. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We had a very good development velocity — they delivered what we needed. 

How did App & Flow Development perform from a project management standpoint?

We used GitHub to manage the project, and I believe App & Flow Development also used Asana. Their team stayed within budget and delivered on time. Typically, we communicated with them through Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

App & Flow Development had excellent communication and integrated well into our team, which was important to us. Their team completed development quickly. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Overall, we were delighted with them, so there's nothing for them to improve. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I'd advise customers to hire them because they're really good. It's important to request App & Flow Development's services far in advance because they're usually busy. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Unveil Social is a tech startup, producing the mobile app CanWe. My role was software architect and mobile engineer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire App & Flow Development, and what were your goals?

We brought in App&Flow to transition our native iOS app and React Native Android app to a unified, React Native mobile implementation.

SOLUTION

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

An executive goal was consolidation of a dual-platform mobile app to a single codebase. App&Flow brought a clear vision for how this could be accomplished, and seemed to have the best "soft fit" for company goals, in terms of shared perspectives. They were both professional and flexible.

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

A general sequence of milestones was agreed upon by both parties, and then implemented in an agile / sprint-oriented form. Changes were also introduced, agilely, over this time. A&F delivered rapidly and adapted to requested changes. The deliverable at every sprint was a working, deployable React Native application that could be tested on both iOS and Android platforms. In fact, there were 3, environment-specific versions for each platform that were delivered, for a total of 6, deployed applications for 2 platforms, per sprint.

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

A project manager was always available to us with very short contact lead times. A lead developer and one or more secondary developers were actively working on different aspects of the solution at different times.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Over the next year, parity with the existing apps was achieved and exceeded. Design, information architecture, user experience changes were constantly going into the hopper, and A&F were able to achieve historical parity while also adapting to these new requirements. The CanWe app deliverable was stable, elegant, and used by several hundred users within 16 months time.

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

A&F's style is to provide a single point of contact in the form of a technically proficient project manager. We used Slack for general communication, Jira for implementation tracking, Aha for project planning. Regular sprint planning and review meetings kept us in sync on the implementation details. Ad hoc meetings were easily scheduled as needed.

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

They execute very quickly on established plans. When encountering an obstacle in the original design spec, they have repeatedly been able to propose and implement an alternative path of less resistance in as little as two days. Attention to detail is superb.The single-point communication kept meeting clutter to a minimum, remaining crystal clear with their internal process.

Ostensibly, A&F's primary offering is mobile development, but in truth they also offer very keen backend coding skills, and show themselves to be expert backend developers as well, conversant with the scalability and security needs of backend systems. I have worked with a wide variety of on and off shore teams, and nobody compares to App&Flow, in the realm of mobile "full stack" development.

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

In some cases, it would be nice to deal directly with developers in meetings. This was possible via Slack, so was little issue in practice. They could use a little patience for outdated / legacy systems that are expensive to replace.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of Giglinked, an online social marketplace. We help musicians to find gigs for live performances.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with App & Flow Development?

We wanted to develop our web app platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

App & Flow Development did web app development and design from scratch using React Node. After I reached out to them, I met with Charles (Founder) to share my requirements and documents to outline what I wanted to build. 

What is the team composition?

I worked with Charles, Vince (Lead Developer), and Paul (Full Stack Developer).

How did you come to work with App & Flow Development?

I used to be Charles’ co-worker in another company.

How much money have you invested in this partnership?

We spent around $100,000 CAD (approximately $77,000 USD) with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from September 2020–July 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They were instrumental in launching a fully functional platform for our business, which has helped us start generating our first revenues. The product they created for us has also assisted us in approaching other vendors and developing partnerships with large organizations on the B2B side of things.

How did App & Flow Development perform from a project management standpoint?

They were able to meet deadlines and were upfront with the budget, so I always knew how much money I’d spend with them. Regarding communication, they were always available for us — we used GitHub, Slack, phone calls, and Zoom.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Charles was very implicated and always there when we needed him. He was a great communicator and good at setting expectations.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything they can improve on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Try to communicate with them as clearly and transparently as possible.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of Ava Technologies, and we make smart indoor gardens. I’m responsible for the hardware and software of the technology.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with App & Flow Development?

We needed someone to create out Android and iOS smart app which would be connected to our IoT device.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We provided them with wireframes that were developed by another provider. App & Flow replicated those designs and created the backend around them. They utilized React Native, Node.js, and Expo as the scaffolding typescript. The backend server is hosted by AWS.

They developed the app from scratch and created a connection between the app and the garden device.

What is the team composition?

Charles (Founder, App & Flow Development) was my main point of contact. He relayed my requirements to his team of developers.

How did you come to work with App & Flow Development?

Charles reached out to us after seeing a job posting. We had originally been looking to hire someone in-house, but Charles demonstrated that his team could complete the work for us.

How much have you invested with them?

We’re on a monthly retainer with them; the total figure over the course of the engagement would be somewhere around $200,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around June 2018, and the partnership is still ongoing. We’ve launched our Android app and are about to launch the iOS version as well. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’ve successfully created a viable product. Their work has enabled us to be the first smart app on the Google Home and Alexa stores, which is a big deal. The app is an integral component of our IoT products, so they delivered valuable work.

While the product is still in Beta, the functionality and reliability seem satisfactory. Out of all the various development teams that I’ve worked with over the years, they’ve been the best.

How did App & Flow Development perform from a project management standpoint?

Since we had them on a monthly retainer, there were no financial surprises. We were also happy with their timeline. They’re pretty communicative and hit most of the deadlines. Charles was available all throughout the workweek, and we communicated on GitHub.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their communication and transparency were stellar. They were also quick learners; even though they’d never created a smart app before, they were prompt in understanding the requirements and adapting to change.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I would appreciate it if I could communicate directly with their developers. Right now, I can only communicate with them through GitHub, which is a bit messy. I typically have the information relayed to them through Charles, but it’d be nice if I had access to the dev team on Slack or another medium.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear with your objectives, and communicate what tech stack you envision using for your project.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a financial institution called Point Up Inc, and I am the co-founder of the company. We are a branchless bank, which means that we are completely online in order to provide a more streamlined operation and better customer experience to our users.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with App & Flow Development?

Being online-only, it was critical for us to have a really great app that would serve all of our customers’ needs, and we worked with App & Flow Development to build the entire customer-facing side of the app and all of its features from scratch on both iOS and Android.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

As a one-stop-shop for our customers, we needed the app to be feature-rich while also being very simple and easy to use for things like money transfers, payments, account signups, and anything else you could do with a normal bank.

We provided wireframes and documentation, and they developed the frontend on React Native so that we could deploy to both iOS and Android at the same time. From there, they integrated all of the features into the backend, and we are now testing and tweaking the early beta application.

What is the team composition?

Over the course of the last year, we’ve worked with four people at different points in time. There are two people actively coding right now, and then we have a project manager and one other point of contact on their team.

How did you come to work with App & Flow Development?

One of my co-founders had worked with their team on a different application, and I first came into contact with App & Flow Development through him. We talked through our idea and requirements with them and decided that they would be a good fit.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent somewhere around $100,000 in total.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the project in April 2019 and our work with them is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

On the surface level, obviously, having the frontend of our application in place is very important. The fact that we were able to get it up and running fairly quickly and to a good standard of quality was really positive. Their team is extremely responsive to any issues that come up and does a good job of proactively addressing those.

The app has received a lot of good feedback so far, so we are very happy with the quality of work that they’ve provided. People seem to be very passionate about what features they use and what they want to see as we continue to develop and roll out the application.

How did App & Flow Development perform from a project management standpoint?

We’ve established a really good workflow at this stage between testing, getting feedback, and making improvements. Their project management has been good overall because of the efforts on communication from both sides. As with any young company, we’ve had growing pains in establishing feedback flows and structure, but we’ve made good progress.

We rely on Slack a lot for our daily back and forth, and then we have phone calls and twice-weekly check-ins to make sure everybody is on the same page. We try to keep things simple, so we generally limit meetings to an hour to set and evaluate priorities and then move on.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The thing I’ve been most impressed by is their willingness to take on feedback and address it. They take constructive criticism well and implement meaningful solutions in a really valuable way. That willingness to communicate goes a long way.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Some of the initial difficulties that we had with communication did cause project delays that we would have hoped to avoid. I’d rather be told a longer and more accurate timeline to begin with than have to readjust the schedule if things don’t go perfectly the first time. They’ve already done work to improve on this, which I appreciate.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re great to work with. Just be very specific in your direction — the more detail you can provide, the more smoothly things will go.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and CTO of Fixit Financial, an app where users obtain car repair loans electronically. They go through electronic identification, VIN validation, and an origination process before being uploaded into a loan management system. It’s a web-based interfaced with a few portals for users and administrators.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with App & Flow Development?

I built the MVP myself and coded it to demonstrate to investors and interested folks. After I’d locked down funding and needed to get production done, I hired his team of engineers to refine the product and get it ready for the market.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I gave them access to a repository of code I built, as well as wireframes and flow diagrams and I created and envisioned. Then, they produced a cross-platform mobile app in React Native using an Expo framework. Once they understood the flow of the solution, they refactored quite a bit of the code and API maps I’d done to make them more scalable and professional. They have excellent coders that are solid on best practices and giving tutorials.

What is the team composition?

We worked with 2–3 developers.

How did you come to work with App & Flow Development?

They were a reference from a traditional web design firm we spoke to. After they said they would need an astronomical fee to use my original code, they recommended Charles. I talked to him and decided to move forward.

How much have you invested with them?

I spent $100,000 CAD ($75,600 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from January until December 2018. The app launched in July 2018, and the rest of the time they were on a support and maintenance contract.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their work was indispensable to a successful launch. When I built the MVP, I had some idea of stringing APIs together, but they added an element of professionalism and troubleshooting I couldn’t do myself. The challenges went above and beyond my technical expertise. They were absolutely necessary to getting the project launched.

There was lots of troubleshooting (issues with cross-platform development always require unique tweaks), and on the day of the launch, Google’s servers went down. This was beyond their control, but they were very responsive. They were accessible at all times too, even though they had other projects going on.  

How did App & Flow Development perform from a project management standpoint?

I underestimated the work involved, but it was no fault of Charles and his team. There were issues with the API and the integration with them and our partners, but no delays were due to App & Flow.

I very much enjoyed the process. We had Slack for communication, and they seemed like they lived there—days, nights, weekends, and holidays. We also had a Trello-like interface where we could see tasks that were being worked on. I felt integrated as a part of the team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

There’s a factor of being in the same city and time zone. I went to their office a few times to work together. It was much more pleasant than working with the overseas folks I’ve outsourced to in past.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It’s hard for me to pinpoint anything exactly because they provided a weekly report. I don’t have much criticism. If I had any issues or didn’t understand something, Chris would explain it. The main engineer was accessible and responsive as well.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re open to explaining how things work, but it helped that I had a technical background. I felt I learned a lot from observing and participating in their process. Soak up as much knowledge as possible and set up a communication channel.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder/CEO of a mobile app for consumers and businesses.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with App & Flow?

We needed help with frontend development. We worked on the interface with another company that was underperforming. We wanted a new agency to take over development and design.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They built a frontend in React Native for both Android and iOS. We gave them ideas of what we wanted to achieve and they made refinements. The app itself has some cool features. Everything is very detailed and fully transparent for users.

They also set up data analytics to give us insight on user preferences and put is in contact with third-party vendors that offer additional services.

What is the team composition?

We work with two people directly, and a third team member is involved behind the scenes. Our project manager and developer share responsibilities and their roles overlap somewhat.

How did you come to work with App & Flow?

Our first interaction was on Facebook. They’re clear communicators and were transparent from the very beginning.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2017. They will provide ongoing development work for at least a few more months.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re still in development, so there are no clear KPIs yet. We're extremely pleased with the quality of the work, their speed, and their communicativeness. They’re super reactive and push to eliminate bugs early. They make changes based on our feedback.

How did App & Flow perform from a project management standpoint?

The CEO/project manager is an incredible communicator. He understands our issues and is good at problem solving. We communicate by phone, email, or in person and they address our questions quickly via GitHub. They’re very easy to do business with.

They aligned with our schedule and we meet every other week. They’re flexible, know our expectations, and deliver high-quality work.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Communication and ownership of the product have been strong since the beginning. They provide great recommendations and feedback and are willing to lead parts of the project. They can interact with the designer and give directions without our intervention and are extremely professional.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’ve had a really good experience and there’s very little we’d improve. As they grow, their capacity becomes more flexible, but we would still like more bandwidth to accelerate some of the components of the product.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Take advantage of their communication style and their openness. Share your expectations and ask questions. They’re very good at understanding your perspective and handling your issues. They will provide a clear agenda and make you feel comfortable.