Appinventiv

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

We are still building the app, so we don’t have outside feedback or metrics yet. This is a really collaborative process. I have ideas for how I wanted the app to look, but this is not my background. They have been so helpful with thinking through the functionality, design, and features, and they support me.

How did Appinventiv perform from a project management standpoint?

At the beginning of the project, they provided a proposal with all the milestones scheduled. I can contact them multiple times a week, and they feel like they might be in the next town over. We’ve never had problems with the time difference and have a tremendous amount of interaction. They walk me through all the steps of the process. We use Basecamp and WhatsApp to connect.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re an absolute pleasure to work with. They have strong customer service and are available at any time to answer questions. They’re happy to go through tremendous detail and make any changes I want to make. They never complain about time commitments to me, and are always willing to do what I want whenever I need them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t have any complaints. This has been a smooth, easy process.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them. They’re very knowledgeable and experienced, and gave suggestions for things I wouldn’t have thought of. They feel like a real partner.

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

We don’t have an MVP yet. We have a somewhat functioning product with 40% of the features. I’m more than happy with that because it has given me a chance to see how they work and to go through the full process of getting something out to TestFlight and get feedback from users. It’s a work in process.

How did Appinventiv perform from a project management standpoint?

It’s been a very managed process throughout. They’ve been very cooperative in working with me to stage development. We’ve broken it into a number of component parts, gradually building up functionality so that we can roll out small improvements and get feedback on those as we go along.

They’ve generally been early in meeting their deadlines. They’re responsive within 24 hours maximum. They’re very easy to work with.

We use Basecamp as a repository for all the communications. We use InVision for prototyping. We’re using TestFlight for beta testing with live users.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Appinventiv is very competitive relative to Hong Kong, but Hong Kong is not the greatest place to find talent. Being able to find someone economically is very good.

They also seem to be a big team. The lead developer I’m working with has worked on many games. I ask him about a specific functionality and he gives me five different solutions. It’s amazing. I didn’t have that depth of experience to be able to talk to someone on the other side who has deep resources, even if that person doesn’t know the answer.

I don’t talk to the founder regularly, but he’s accessible. My project is small compared to others they work on and they still offer high-quality service.

Are there any areas they could improve?

During the discovery process, I was looking for them to give me ideas and test what I had been thinking about. We’ve spent time revisiting things and still landed pretty close to where we started. It’s all been fine. I’m happy with the process.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The more specific instructions you give, the closer they’re going to come to delivering what you want. If you just give some concepts and let them go, don’t be surprised if it’s not what you expected. Having wireframes, functional design document, and being very clear about what you want will help you. I recommend breaking it up into parts.

In my experience, the best outcomes I have had are when I’ve given somebody a small project. I sometimes give a really small project to multiple people and choose the one who does the best job. You don’t have to tell them that. You’re not going to know until you see results.

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

They understood our needs from the first conversation and worked very quickly, so we could get the app tested with our gambler respondents much sooner than our previous vendor or other companies we’d considered would have. So far, our internal team is impressed with the design and the functionality. The app is very user-friendly and includes everything we’ve asked for.

How did they perform from a project management standpoint?

We're in the Pacific Northwest and they're in India, but they're willing to connect with us whenever we need them. They're very responsive (usually via Basecamp,  Skype, or email),  and they resolve any issues quickly, making the process fairly simple for us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They understood exactly what we wanted and why we wanted what we wanted. This was not a simple app to design, but they took all the components and put them together in a cohesive way. They also guided us toward more user-friendly solutions than we initially had imagined.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I wish they opened an office in the U.S. to avoid a time difference, but they're always willing to work with my schedule.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Give them all the details of what you want and let them find the best way to do that. They know what they're doing and are willing to share their knowledge and expertise. If you're looking for creative design, they're a good fit.

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

The first month after the launch was pretty impressive, getting around 1,500 downloads. I did the App Store optimization myself. I built this app to impress other companies that might want to implement the SDK into their operating systems or into their Software-as-a-Service offering.

My focus was not making money on the app, but I did want to see if people would want to use it, so the download score was important to me. Right now, I probably have about 2,000 downloads, but I haven't spent anything on marketing and the app has only been launched for about 2 months. I'm happy with the product in general; it has only had 2 crashes in 2 months, so the metrics are good.

How did Appinventiv perform from a project management standpoint?

I would give Appinventiv a B-plus for project management. Communication was a bit off here and there and I had to do a lot of project management on my end. I was on top of my project manager to make sure that the things we discussed with Appinventiv were actually not looked over and forgotten.

I had 2 project managers from Appinventiv within the project itself; one project manager left, and then I had the new one. Things like that usually mean that it will take some time before you get the new project manager caught up on your project and you find yourself repeating things. Once the new project manager started and got updated with everything, things went much smoother. I did have to train and educate the new project manager on the product itself, which is super normal anytime you change project managers.

I worked strictly and directly with the designer and project manager; the project manager worked directly with the developers. Technically, one developer was tasked with my project, but when we started having issues, I believe they had several working on an issue at a time. They used Basecamp to manage my project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I would highly rate the quality of their design as well as their responsiveness throughout the project. They were very helpful during hard times. I would often get frustrated and wanted things to get fixed, and they always made sure that they took care of the problem, even if it took multiple attempts. They were on their game in terms of how much they cared about their clients’ satisfaction. Their development skills were also pretty good.

With all the challenges in this project, I thought that I might end up with a subpar product, but I was really happy that they fixed all of the issues in the end. I think they had a different and much better developer who stepped in to fix a lot of problems.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could improve with project management. What happened to me was probably a unique situation where my project manager was put on another project and then a new one was brought in. That’s when I had a lot of issues with the product in general, but I don't want to point at that and say they need to improve it because I know why it happened and it might not be the same for others.

Overall, to be honest, they did a really good job.