Appinventiv

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CTO of TaxiCoin

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are digitalizing the taxi industry by personalizing and improving the user experience through an app for ordering taxis.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Appinventiv to accomplish?

• Develop the Taxicoin app
• Desgin and implement the server arquitecture
• Make improvements over the finallized app

SOLUTION

How did you find Appinventiv?

Referral

Why did you select Appinventiv over others?

• High ratings
• Great culture fit
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Appinventiv were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

The development of the whole app has included many important tasks to have it finished. Such as implementation of Google APIs, payment gateways, calling and messaging interface, a complete administration panel, and many more.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have a working app that fulfills its purpose. We have been able to improve the UX over time and we are getting really good feedback about it.

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

Appinventiv has an efficient system for communication and delivery of the items they develop. They adapted to the needs of our project regarding deadlines and communication.

What was your primary form of communication with Appinventiv?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

We've found Appinventiv's exceptional development skills and outstanding efficiency to be the most impressive aspects. Their ability to deliver a high-quality app within the set deadline showcased a level of professionalism that exceeded our expectations.

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

None that we are aware of.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of the company. We sell car spare parts that are mainly tires and batteries. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Appinventiv?

Our website was developed using WordPress. The platform was limiting, and we had so much trouble with its updates; we had to do nonstop updates manually for the website. As a result, I reached out to Appinventiv to help us find a new solution. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Appinventiv has recommended Magento as the new solution for our website, so they’ve migrated the site from WordPress to Magento. They also worked on giving the website a new look and feel. They’ve developed new functionalities, too. Given that, the project has become a complete website revamp. 

For features and functionality, the website serves as a marketplace for various vendors that sell tires and car parts. Those vendors can use our website as a platform to sell their products. 

What is the team composition?

I’ve been in contact with three teammates. However, our meetings usually have 4–5 teammates, including the project manager. Sometimes, their director is also involved. One person takes the minutes of the meeting. 

How did you come to work with Appinventiv?

I found Appinventiv through a friend’s recommendation. I spoke to my friend about my website problems, and he recommended them. I connected to the team, and they replied quickly to get our requirements and provide solutions. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $43,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the project in November 2022, and the engagement is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The website hasn’t gone live, so we don’t have specific metrics yet. 

How did Appinventiv perform from a project management standpoint?

Appinventiv has a great project management approach. They document everything and try to keep everybody on the same page. The team is helpful when we need to make changes on the website, providing timelines for our requests.

There have been some delays in the project for reasons from both our teams. On our side, we have many official holidays. Sometimes, we take a three-week break and ask them to pause the engagement. On their side, they’ve delivered some things that don’t perfectly align with our requirements, but that’s only because of miscommunication; they aren’t done on purpose. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are great at providing the solutions that I need. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their accounting team focuses more on deadlines instead of whether or not my requirements are completed. Sometimes, they go by the timeline even if our requirements haven’t been fully delivered. They keep bugging us with emails and daily reminders. 

Moreover, their technical implementation is great, but they sometimes don’t have the best business wording on the website. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear with your requirements and document everything you send them. This way, they’ll completely understand your needs. Overall, ensure they understand your needs exactly before implementing anything. 

In our case, we explained some of our requirements verbally and had some miscommunication. The results would've been better if we’d provided them with documentation.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Vice President, IT & Enterprise Architecture of Pride Mobility Products

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Pride Mobility Products® Corporation is the world’s leading designer and manufacturer of mobility products including Jazzy® Power Chairs, Go-Go® Travel Mobility, Pride Mobility® Scooters, and Pride® Power Lift Recliners. The Pride® family of companies also includes Quantum Rehab®, a leader in complex rehab power chairs, as well as Stealth Products®, the foremost manufacturer of positioning components. 

Headquartered in Exeter, Pennsylvania, Pride also has operations in Las Vegas, Mississippi, Florida, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Pride is dedicated to providing expertly designed, engineered, and tested products incorporating technologically innovative features enabling consumers to achieve the best quality of life and mobility goals.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Appinventiv to accomplish?

• Built a B2B Mobile App to keep us competitive in the industry

SOLUTION

How did you find Appinventiv?

Dominos App

Why did you select Appinventiv over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Appinventiv were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

The scope of work was to develop a B2B Mobile Application for in the field technicians, Clinicians and providers/business partners. This app was to help them immediately have information at their fingertips without having to carry around a laptop. PQ-365 includes all the Pride Mobility® and Quantum Rehab® resources needed by providers and clinicians.

 The free, easy-to-use app helps busy professionals stay up to date with the latest information from Pride and Quantum and access all our content in one quick and convenient place. Features include serial number and order number lookups, a quick-search option, 360-degree product views, a comprehensive order tracker, fillable order forms, push notifications, news, events, specifications sheets, etc. 

Key Deliverables: 

• Interactive Wireframes 
• Scope of work documentation 
• Business flow diagrams 
• iOS application 
• Android application
•  iPad/Tablet application 
• Web based responsive CMS 
• QA test reports 
• Analytics Dashboard (3rd party integration)

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• When entering into the eCommerce market, we worked with Gartner to help us derive our roadmap for success. This mobile app was a key component for this strategy. It gave us a competitive edge in the marketplace. Due to Appinventiv's due diligence in understanding our business, on-time delivery of key features for the initial and subsequent launches of the mobile app gave us an improved Provider/client experience. 
• Reduce Calls/Emails into Sales and Tech Services: - Easy and intuitive functionality allows for Universal & Quick searches for Serial numbers, Order tracking via Order, Invoice and/or PO numbers, bar code scanning, product information/ specs, videos, images, and documentation are all available at your fingertips. 

• Integration to several 3rd party solutions and our eCommerce Website SSO have been integral to the overall end user experience, ensuring security and allowing automated Products and Parts ordering. None of this would be possible without the timely attention that was required to gather requirements, successfully complete end-to-end and User Acceptance testing, and the communication and collaboration that was visible on a daily basis. 

  All of the above features in this mobile app were so successful and positively received that we launched to our International Orgs. We are in the process of working with Appinventiv to build out additional apps and websites with the use of the Content Management System (central repository) that can now seamlessly be used across our suite of products.

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

They worked closely with our team throughout the project to ensure we hit all of our milestones. They remained on target with the budget, even though we made several scope changes along the way. If our scope changes were large, they gave us a separate LOE to address them. Timelines were always in the forefront of their minds, even when we kept changing scope. We worked together to determine a new timeline that worked for both parties. 

They always listened to what we wanted and offered their advice and the PM offers viable solutions/suggestions as they are becoming quite knowledgeable of our business, products and intended needs. They haven’t steered us wrong over the years.

What was your primary form of communication with Appinventiv?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

The Appinventiv team is extremely response. Due to great communication tools, recurring and Ad hoc meetings, we have slowly matured our process across the past 3 years. They help us improve as a company.

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

N/A

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the Software Development Manager at an Australian startup working in the IoT space.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Appinventiv?

We needed help with IT staff augmentation services.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We use Appinventiv as our development team; we use them in a time and materials capacity.

When I joined the company two years ago, we were already using Appinventiv for project-based delivery. After a while, we transitioned to time and materials so we could run the team in a full sprint process.

Appinventiv provides more than developers; they have frontend, backend, iOS, and Android engineers, QA personnel, design resources, Odoo and ERP engineers, and project managers. We also use them for DevOps 24/7 support. In summary, we leverage whatever they offer.

What is the team composition?

We've grown the team to around 12 members over the two years. We interact with everyone on the team, but we mainly interface through their project manager.

How did you come to work with Appinventiv?

A previous colleague had worked with them before and recommended them.

How much have you invested with them?

Our average monthly spend has been between $10,000–$40,000 for two years.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve used Appinventiv since January 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We measure our success by how well the team works. As an engineering team, Appinventiv follows the engineering process, delivers a quality product, learns from mistakes in general, and refines the process as we go.

How did Appinventiv perform from a project management standpoint?

We estimate sprints and deliver them; there are none of the issues with project-based models. Sometimes it takes longer, but on the whole, Appinventiv is pretty good at estimating what they do.

We use Microsoft Teams internally and do video calls once a day or messages multiple times a day, depending on when we need it.  They also use our Jira for issue tracking.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re impressed with how well they’ve grown as a company. When we worked with them in a project-based capacity, there was no actual scope for an engineering process. Since we’ve changed to time and materials, we have the ability to budget and do all of the overheads we need to do to deliver a quality project.

Moreover, the team members were shy when we first met them; they wouldn’t communicate directly with me. After two years, the teammates are at a point where they can lead the team and talk to me on a daily basis. Overall, Appinventiv has worked internally and communicated across their organization to further their engineering process. They’ve also launched a DevOps division, which now offers 24/7 monitoring.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The main difficulty has been the language barrier. Since I’ve started working with them, individual team members been more active about coming to us, but there’s still occasional miscommunication. I don’t think that’s a weakness specific to them; it’s just the difference between the cultures and this occurs with almost all teams, especially fully remote teams. Overall, Appinventiv knows to ask us if they don’t understand something.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d 100% recommend doing time and materials and having an engineering lead in the company to drive Appinventiv’s team. Without clear engineering direction, Appinventiv could make something that doesn’t need to be made because they were told to.

Not knowing what you want is the biggest weakness of bespoke software development. I recommend hiring a senior engineer or software development manager before going to Appinventiv so there’s no direct interaction between a very non-technical person and Appinventiv’s team. If you’re all over the place with constantly changing requirements, scope creep, and a poorly thought out business plan, the engagement will have less desirable outcomes.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CPTO of a large recruiting and staffing agency in Asia Pacific region.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We identified an opportunity in the market to serve short-term job workers better and provide a better service to businesses that needs them. We wanted to build a mobile first platform that streamlines the entire experience starting from job searching, shift assignment to salary payment for workers. At the same time provide an almost-instant job fulfillment experience for businesses that are looking for workers in short-term roles. We needed to build this solution in a very short time frame, getting a MVP out to market for rapid learning, refine feature sets and build momentum starting with selected industries.

SOLUTION

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

We found them through Google and chose them after comparing against another vendor. The deciding factor was their past experience in the similar domain and their clear communication during the deciding phase.

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

The project scope includes early exploration of ideas and solutions, defining key features and targeted users, agreement on critical business outcomes and creating delivery milestones that is achievable. Once project requirements and scopes are finalized, the development process starts with wireframes, design systems, screen designs and eventually moving on to agile user stories and continuous releases of completed features.

Towards the end of project, production release readiness includes stress testing and load testing to ensure platform performance can meet projected business growth in the first year. With the target external users and internal users in mind, the platform requires a mix of mobile application, web application and cloud based infrastructure along with a range of 3rd party services to enable fast and reliable transactions that are critical for great user experience but not core value proposition of the product.

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

Over the duration of the project, we worked with approximately 20 people. The team starts small with a few senior leads such as project manager, product owner, but quickly expand as the project moves from discovery phase to design (2 designers joined) and eventually delivery phase. In delivery phase, at any given time we’d be working with 6-8 engineers from various skill sets such as front-end engineers, mobile app engineers, backend engineers, test engineers and system architect.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Prior to a planned Beta launch, we had a series of pre-launch test or pilots planned. There’s a total of 4 test planned with the intention to improve our launch confidence and test/validate ideas pre-launch. All 4 test requires the product to be in various state of readiness so that internal users can run simulated scenarios and real-life scenarios using the platform. The project team managed to deliver on-time and always on stand-by during our test period which at times lasted for 2 weeks. Feedback from our testing groups were generally positive and list of improvement ideas are well received. They always work in a collaborative manner to adjust and refine the backlog based on the learnings from these tests.

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

Common answers include communication tools (e.g., email, Slack, Jira). The team followed a standard Agile project management style, where we would have a 2-week sprint to deliver high priority tasks, after determining what goes into the sprint in our sprint planning calls. Within the sprint, we would have catch up calls to discuss progress as well as any blockers the team might face. We had a couple of communication tools we used for various purposes: 

1. Basecamp: for announcements, release updates and meeting minutes
2. Skype: for calls and messages
3. Outlook: usually used when needed to communicate with extended groups and external parties
4. Jira: for issues and bug tracking

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

Collaborative approach on every stage of the development process. And during critical milestones, the team is very supportive and reliable when time critical issues are identified.

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

Approach in experience design and design system could be improved. When working with more than one designers and multiple platform, consistency is sometimes lacking. UI and interaction sometimes lacks consistency in the design. However when feedback is given, they were always addressed and refined.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of marketing for a business services company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Appinventiv?

We needed resources to develop a mobile app.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We worked together with Appinventiv on our client’s project. We got the requirements from our client and gave them to Appinventiv’s team. They built the mobile app from scratch; we used Flutter and React Native.

What is the team composition?

We had a project manager, three developers, and one coordinator.

How did you come to work with Appinventiv?

My friend is a project manager at Appinventiv. I called and told him the requirements. Most of our clients are for web development, but we needed help with mobile app development. They were a good company with good reviews.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $4,000–$5,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from February–March 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project was completed, and we got good reviews from the client — they liked the mobile app. Additionally, Appinventiv advised on how we could improve what would be bad for the client.

How did Appinventiv perform from a project management standpoint?

They had a lot of experience. We communicated via Skype and phone calls. They were native Indians, so the communication was straightforward.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were problem solvers.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they were experienced.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the technical lead at Seniority Pvt. Ltd., an online shopping platform. Our main focus is on e-commerce, but we have a few warehouses and stores as well.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Appinventiv?

We needed someone to develop our iOS and Android app.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Appinventiv developed our iOS and Android app using Magento. It’s an e-commerce application where users can browse products and make purchases. It also allows them to track their orders and see product reviews.

What is the team composition?

We worked with four people from Appinventiv.

How did you come to work with Appinventiv?

We heard about them through word of mouth.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from July 2020–September 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Within the first month of launching our app, we got around 1,000 downloads, something that exceeded our expectations. Currently, our app’s rating is about 4.4; we’re very happy with that. Initially, the app had some issues, but they took care of them.

How did Appinventiv perform from a project management standpoint?

Appinventiv’s project management was good; we were very satisfied. We used Jira to manage the project, and we communicated via Skype.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Appinventiv was technically strong.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could have improved the app’s quality by implementing QA. It would have been great if they found the bugs before launching.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you want a good e-commerce application, you should go to Appinventiv.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of GoodMood. We develop apps and app games. We’ve launched a relaxation and sleep app with unique features. Our focus is on helping people to relax, sleep better, and bring about self-improvement. People are our main focus.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Appinventiv?

My partner and I are the product owners. We define the functionalities of the apps as well as hire designers and developers. This project was quite a challenging process because I’d already had a bad experience with an app developer and lost a lot of money.

I started in this industry in 2016, coming from a completely different field. I had to learn everything from scratch. We always have to pay “apprentice money”, as it’s called in German, or pay for our own mistakes. Life is the best university.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Appinventiv developed my app completely from scratch, based on the UI design I delivered. We’re building the app natively, only for iOS only at the moment. I’m a team player and organizer, and I don’t see myself as the boss.

The goal is to create a really good product, and this is what I’m striving for. I don’t want to have app #1,000,001 in the app store; I want to have an outstanding application that really helps people.

My intention is to have an app of the year, either in the App Store or Google Play Store. I can only create an outstanding product if I have really good team members. Everybody should give good input, and we’ll discuss those ideas.

What is the team composition?

There are 17 people on Basecamp, and I’m usually in communication with 7–8 people from Appinventiv. The project manager is my main contact, and I talk to the developers when needed.

How did you come to work with Appinventiv?

I found them on a freelancing platform. I chose Appinventiv out of about 75 proposals for two main reasons. The first was that they’d already launched more than 1,000 apps successfully. This told me they had experience in the business and would know how to solve any issues that came up. They had good organization, and I could be sure that if they gave me a fixed price they wouldn’t come up with any unexpected things.

Secondly, during my negotiations with them, I learned they really look into the details in order to understand the project properly and avoid misunderstandings.

The game design document I made was certainly not complete. A good developer would always ask what I meant by this or that and identify anything that was wrong. Appinventiv made sure that we were on the same page and even came up with proposals for improving the app.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost so far is close to $30,000. We’re starting development on a new module, which will cost another $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Appinventiv in August 2019, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I had no app launched in the App Store, and now I do. It usually works bug-free, and when there is a bug, the user usually won’t notice it. Those are in the lines of a wrong icon or a wrong image size — things that I’ll catch. Appinventiv works on bug fixing really fast, and they ensure that things are going well. If there’s an issue, they start working on it instantly.

Having launched the app was one thing, but their team continued to work hard after launching it. This is a different ball game. Appinventiv is really supportive, fast, and helpful in this area. We’ll always face issues during the development process.

Working with a bigger company like Appinventiv makes it more likely to find solutions for those issues. There was a problem with my AWS server. Appinventiv asked the experts in their company, they came back with the right answer, and fixed it.

We’re still in the finalization process, so we’ve only run small advertisements for the app. We don’t have thousands of users yet, but our current users like the app. My friends also like the app, and they’re using it. I’ve received specific feedback on it, which means they’re really working with the app.

How did Appinventiv perform from a project management standpoint?

We’re using Basecamp and Jira. Their project manager is doing an excellent job, and it’s easy to follow all the tasks and issues. I test new builds in TestFlight and write my feedback in Jira. Then, Appinventiv starts working on that feedback. Once everything is finished, the issue ticket is closed. The system is professional and easy to understand, even for someone new in the business.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very straightforward and honest. Rather than looking for payable hours, they strive to deliver a good product to the client. It’s very important for me that the people involved are really putting their hearts into the product, and this is the case with Appinventiv’s team. I can see this in the feedback they give me.

They’ve recommended things that saved me money and made the product better. For example, their lead developer recommended that we build the algorithm for showing videos later. If we did it now and there was a bug, it would’ve taken them ages to identify it.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing on this planet is perfect as it is. The important thing for me when working with a team is to remember that we’re all human beings and when we motivate people, they’ll usually love the work they do and deliver better results.

We’ve figured out during the process what was less good and had to be improved for the next step. After a big update, we’ll usually have a call and analyze what we could improve in the future, in order to save time and have better results. This is an ongoing process with Appinventiv, and I’m really happy with them. If something isn’t working well, I can talk to their lead manager or one of their bosses, and they’ll take care of it.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

When working with a team, it’s important to ensure that each member understands the project properly and to motivate them. This will help us have a good result. Appinventiv works well and is open to discussing new proposals and questions. They don’t want to suck the last cent out of me, but rather deliver a good product and see me happy.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the Senior IT Project Manager at Pride Mobility Products Corporation. We are a B2B organization that sells things like mobility scooters, medical lift chairs, and specialty chairs that have been designed physically for an individual’s medical needs.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Appinventiv?

Appinventiv has provided us with a mobile solution for both Android and iOS platforms.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Right now, we have implemented phase one which is just for one side of our business. It is an open app so anyone can go in, but it is built mainly for technicians when they go out into the field. 

When someone requests a chair, the technician comes to their home and they can go in with the app and bring up the order form. It has approximately 14 different products and based on the individual’s needs, the technician will sit down and interview them, and then fill out these forms. 

Phase two, which we are building and planning to release in March, is going to include our other products, which there are about 45 of. We are adding those to our app, which will be renamed, and we are looking to rebrand towards our actual applications in-house. It will do the same thing and allow for ease of use using a PDF order form.

As we work into phase three, we are hoping to automate a lot of that, rather than having to go through an 18-page form. We are hoping by the end of this year to incorporate single sign-on and logins so that providers will also be able to use the app. We are also going to have shopping carts and add a lot of functionality using Appinventiv’s subject matter expertise. 

We are using a content management central repository to house all of the artifacts which I have implemented in the past and I know the value of those. In addition to using that in the backend of the app, we will also be able to incorporate that for any of our websites. 

We are also looking at some VR to see if a chair will fit in someone’s hallway, for instance. We are adding coach tips, which will be a little different than a push notification, but will act in that same fashion, as well as a voice search capability.

What is the team composition?

I work with a project and delivery manager. There are a couple of other people that are more technical in nature, like their iOS and Android developers and their designers.

I also work with their engagement manager and I have worked with their accounting and invoicing people. I met with the co-founder. They have all been wonderful to work with which is really nice. 

How did you come to work with Appinventiv?

We did our RFI, and I had several people within the company here that were helping me identify some vendors. Our director is the one who found them. She saw a couple of things that they had done.

How much have you invested in them?

To date, we are at approximately $120,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in February 2020, and it is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They seem to bend over backward, and they can almost read my mind in some sense which is good. We don’t have a large IT team, so having Appinventiv as a trusted and valued partner has been remarkable. 

That comes from my boss as well, who is the senior director of IT and the highest person on the IT board. She also is very happy that we have gone with Appinventiv, because everything they said they could do, they do. 

If they tell us they are unsure, they will always provide options or they will get back to us. They are giving me what I want but they aren’t falsely saying yes to things they cannot do. So far, there really hasn’t been anything that has hindered us or constricted us in building out our app, in fact, it just keeps growing. We plan on partnering with Appinventiv for a long time.

When it comes to our quality standards here, we rely on our sales executives. Those were the folks we would go back to and ask them all the different features and functionalities that they would want. Of course, that changed quite a bit because everyone has a preference on view and representation, so we did have to go back and forth through that. 

Appinventiv was very patient through that, but I would say most of our success metrics came directly from our CEO, our sales VPs, and executive management because they have been trying to do something like this for quite a while and it was never able to get off the ground. To their eyes and to that audience, it was a huge success, and we are still receiving very positive feedback from the field. 

They like the search functionality, they like the ease of use, and they like that they can find any owner’s manual, order form, brochure, and see news and events. As long as each of the requirements within the requirements stack was met, and they were easily usable by the end-users, then that fit our success criteria, at least my success criteria.

How did Appinventiv perform from a project management standpoint?

We have been trying to monitor the project management constraints of quality, budget, and time. The app was delivered on time, within budget, and actually a little under budget, and the quality has been phenomenal.

We had an SOW put together and it spelled out a lot of the details including the communications. Because they are offshore, we tried to schedule meetings early in the morning and again, most of us within the organization are in New York, so Appinventiv has been very accommodating. 

I have regular meetings scheduled with Arvind (Project Manager) a couple of times a week which are at 7:30 a.m. my time, which is in the evening for him and is always after dinner. I have even been on with him when it was 10 or 11 o’clock at night for them going through UAT testing. They are very accommodating. 

What works well is that they do have staff that work off-hours too. If I send information in the morning, after our call, Arvind will get that to the team. Throughout the day as I am sending information, I almost always have a response by the next morning. We do work through Outlook email, but they do use Basecamp which is a nice repository to use because all the communications are housed there.

They’ve also been very good at letting us know about time off. Arvind will just reach out and let us know if there is a holiday. He even sends us a link, so we actually learn about their holiday. I like that they are sharing that with our team because I think it gets people to know each other a little more, especially when you are constantly working remotely, and it adds that extra personal touch.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their response time and availability to me. We have a nine and a half-hour time difference, and it seems like whenever I have something, whether it is an issue or a topic to discuss, it seems like they are readily available. They make themselves available even when it comes to their holidays and they will make sure someone is available from a support perspective.

Arvind helped us build out metrics so we can actually see who has downloaded the app and they were able to combine both the Apple and Google metrics which natively exist, and they were able to combine them into one Firebase console for our marketing team.

They are very efficient with their hours. I have done this type of work before and they don’t inflate the hours when they give me an LOE which I found to be very refreshing and they aren’t short-changing themselves either. Appinventiv has a really good handle on their team and their team’s abilities and getting stuff done.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Basecamp is a tool but it doesn’t give you the discussion thread, so you have to go back to the Basecamp tool itself to see it. It does send you an email in Outlook.

We are working on improving the invoice structure, and I think that was the biggest thing to meet our invoicing structure needs. That was just brought to our attention, and they are already discussing it and getting that to us. I think it is that administrative part of invoicing and billing and breaking it out, but other than that, I asked for the change and they are very accommodating.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the project manager at Cellink Life Sciences. It is a bioprinting company with multiple domains. We started with bioprinting solutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Appinventiv?

We are launching a new product in microscopy. We needed to build an app for different platforms, specifically iOS and Windows. We don’t have developers in-house, so we were looking to outsource the project.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They built an iOS app interface for the device. They also did some work in Android, for future use. Our business analyst worked collaboratively with them to design the interfaces and they developed using those interfaces. We made a design change and they implemented it.

Currently, they maintain and provide support for the app. They also added QA into their team when we requested it, in order to test prior to delivering code to us.

What is the team composition?

Amardeep (Manager of Technology) is my main point of contact throughout the project. There is a project manager and a couple of developers, and there is currently one developer providing support.

How did you come to work with Appinventiv?

They did demonstrations and our team went to visit their offices. We decided they were the right team for the project.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $85,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together around June 2019 and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The product isn’t on the market yet. They have very skilled iOS developers — we use tools to measure the code quality and it’s very high. 

How did Appinventiv perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project manager acts as Scrum Master; the entire project is managed from their side. We have team meetings to discuss tasks and they have internal stand-ups. They assigned developers to certain domains and they’re flexible when we request changes. We communicate primarily through Basecamp.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Two things really stand out to me: their good price and high-quality developers and product.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There was a lot of miscommunication in the beginning. We had issues with deliveries, and they didn’t flag those issues. It ended up requiring a second design, which increased the cost, as well.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear in your requirements and expectations. If you do that, working with this team will be a breeze.