Ars Futura

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the digital technology product manager at Blizzard Entertainment. We make games for fans globally. I currently work on the Call of Duty League.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ars Futura?

I’ve worked with Ars Futura for about four and a half years. Originally, they were building apps and websites, specifically for the media network to distribute content for another organization. When I took this job to handle web and mobile for the Call of Duty League, they came along with us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Ars Futura helped us build out the foundational aspects of launching that league through initial landing pages. They helped develop components that we use on our universal web and mobile platforms that work on the league and team sites. The main projects they’ve been helping us with are around viewership incentives. 

The team designed components that track users’ progress, display video, and show rewards that they can earn from hitting viewership milestones. They designed the components that went inside of the Call of Duty companion app in React Native. 

What is the team composition?

I work primarily with Ivan (CEO & Founder) and Luka (COO/Design Team Lead).

How did you come to work with Ars Futura?

They were brought on before I started.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $80,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We launched the league in October 2019, but the work had been going on for six months prior. The majority of their work was finished in December 2019. We picked up again in March 2020 for all of our viewership components.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The viewership incentive milestones were a huge success. For our championship event, we gave away beta codes for Call of Duty Cold War to 10,000 lucky viewers, and Ivan and Luka drove that design process from problem to solution. 

Ars Futura is very much a part of the process. They were there when we went through the initial problem of what we wanted to achieve and when we went through the review process with our stakeholders. 

They were there to address concerns and to make sure that all of our stakeholders’ feedback was addressed if possible. Our stakeholders trust the team, which is important to us.

How did Ars Futura perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate with them almost on a daily basis. Since they're based in Croatia, it works with our timezone because we can send over requests the evening prior, and we can review them the following morning. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Our league moves at the speed of light. A lot of things change in real-time, especially given the world we live in.

What’s unique about Ars Futura is that they’ve always been there to help us with whatever needs we have, whether it’s designing promotional components for us or developing components for the website that are on a universal scale.

The team has helped us with almost every problem on the design side. Whatever we need and whenever we need it, they’ve always been there for us. They take the time to understand the users they’re addressing.

Because they’ve been working in this space for a long time, the team has also developed a good understanding of what e-sports users are looking for and of what we’re looking for as an organization in terms of our designs and components.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There's room for improvement in the area of handing off to engineering in terms of providing some additional UX documentation to make the engineering process concrete. It’s something that I’ve already communicated to them and that we’ve already begun to address.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Take the time at the beginning of the relationship to walk them through and be part of the education process of who the users are and what they’re looking for. That foundation made our relationship strong.

We’ve specifically brought them along with us for the three different organizations that we’ve been in and they’ve delivered every time. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a community engagement platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ars Futura?

We wanted product development and design support.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Ars Futura created design screens to help us optimize the UX flow. Additionally, they helped us with onboarding and features for our iOS and Android mobile app. When it comes to the design side, we provide them with a broad goal or purpose, and they go from there.

They’ve mostly done frontend work, but are now also taking on some backend development work. The team also assists us with DevOps in terms of helping us create a good process for launching updates to our mobile app. Ars Futura has built everything in ReactNative using JavaScript, and our backend is in Salesforce.

What is the team composition?

We work with two full-time teammates: one engineer and one designer. There are also other teammates who are occasionally involved. Our main point of contact has been Ivan (CEO & Founder), and we’ve worked with Ana (UI/UX Designer) and Boris (QA Engineer).

How did you come to work with Ars Futura?

We found them through one of our business advisors who has worked with Ars Futura before. We decided they were a good fit after speaking with other companies that they were working with and gaining a lot of confidence in the team’s ability to execute and communicate well.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve spent about $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement began in April 2019, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Ars Futura brings the level of ideation and collaboration that we were looking for. They’re very concerned about their customers and end-users. We’ve shipped mission-critical features to our app and we’ve completely overhauled the entire platform itself.

We released a brand new version of our app, and the team was critical in the process of getting it out there. Now, we rely on them as our lead engineering firepower and we plan to grow with them.

How did Ars Futura perform from a project management standpoint?

They are so communicative and easy to work with. Ars Futura tells us very clearly when they can or cannot get something done. We set timelines and by and large they’ve hit almost every single one. We use Jira for our roadmaps and stories. Additionally, on the design side, they use Zeplin.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They clearly care about our product. It’s been great to see Ivan lean in quite a bit into the work. His ability to provide that personal touch has been great. Additionally, we brought Ana in to visit our office about a year ago, so there’s been a great integration between our two teams. We see Ars Futura as a part of our team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Being six hours apart is always a challenge, especially in terms of communication. For example, there was a time when we didn’t communicate certain expectations around timelines and coordinating hand-offs between internal teammates very well.

Broadly, it’s been a great experience and those are just challenges that come with any partnership.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Ivan and his team care about their clients. They have great values as a business and are willing to go above and beyond to provide useful service and partnership, which is critical for a project. If you’re looking for a random development shop to churn out some features, I’m sure Ars Futura would be good at it.

But if you’re looking for a partner to really help you think about how your technology and product are being built and how you can accelerate that and improve on it, they’re definitely the right people to interact with. They have the right level of expertise on the team to make it happen.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Studentski.hr is one of the largest online communities for students in Croatia. Web platform is complex and delivers news (media), services such as job offers, market place, literature etc. I'm co-founder and project manager for the latest upgrade and redesign.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Ars Futura?

ArsFutura is our technology partner since 2013. when they took over back-end and front-end development from our previous development partner. From that point on we started to deliver reliable service to our end-users and kept doing so till today. In 2019. we hired Arsfutura for technology upgrade on our custom CMS and backend services, and for redesing of entire Web.

What were your goals for this project?

Goal was:

• reevaluate our services and decide which one to keep and do we need to develop new ones
• do the technology upgrade to the latest software versions which will have an impact on our performance, security and other.
• a redesign that will have an impact on our existing end-user and attract new ones
• introduce several new marketing partners (native networks, advertising networks, banner distribution service and etc)

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

ArsFutura is our partner for 7 years and we didn't consider option to hire another partner.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Our first milestone was the evaluation of the current platform and the preparation of the project. ArsFutura provided consultancy services for all areas: services from a user point of view, technology, and design. During that period we prepared technical specifications, branding and new design, and project plan.

After that ArsFutura was responsible for development (reengineering) of our custom made CMS and back-end services, development of new features, integration with third-party solutions, and front-end development based on prepared design. In the final phase they supported our functional testing and provided security and performance testing, migrated old data and deployed platform live.

What was the team composition?

The team was composed of 6 people, 2 PM-s from our side (coordinators), and 4 key persons form Arsfutura: PM, business analyst, designer and lead developer. Other people from both sides were involved partially and when needed. Due to the nature of the project, there was a need to coordinate and involve different other partners (eg. infrastructure provider, advertising networks and etc.)

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

The project was delivered on time and according to our expectations. We are "live" for 3 months and didn't have any issues with the platform. We asked our end-users about their satisfaction with the redesign and 90% rated our platform with a score of 4,5/5 or higher. We increased day visits by 15%, increased our registered users that use our services by 10%, and have better results on marks such as pages per visit.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project was managed according to our expectations with very good communication among team members. We had regular checkpoints in Arsfutura HQ and managed project using Slack. Results was on-time delivery according to the project plan with all targets achieved.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

ArsFutura provided a creative team with a strong technical background and that brings great energy to the project. Their leadership is committed to delivering high-quality services which provided high level of trust between partners. At the end project was a success and we as a client got additional value from our investment.

Are there any areas for improvement?

They should get better coffee machine in HQ :) When we put jokes on the side, there are always those few situations when feedback or some small segment of delivery is not as expected but the team has great communication and commitment to make it right.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are an online video game competition platform. Our company provides a path to professional gaming for amateur and aspiring pro players through ranking systems, Tournaments, Ladders & Leagues.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Ars Futura?

Our Web platform was badly outdated but we did not have the resources to rebuild it at the time. We decided the best path forward was to invest in mobile apps as a companion experience to a new integration we were working on with Call of Duty. We hired Ars Futura to design the UI/UX of the mobile apps on iOS & Android. This opened up a new audience for us to reach we were unable to at the time.

What were your goals for this project?

We were trying to drive traffic to our platform that was previously unavailable to us through our Mobile app & a direct integration with Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. We needed a quick and simple way for users on a console to interact with our platform without having to be near a computer at the time. This app was meant to be the top of the funnel into the rest of our business.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I was not involved in the selection of Ars Futura at the time. My boss, VP of product, found and selected them.

Describe the project in detail.

The project included all core functionality of our web product as well as some new features and improvements. Account creation, discovery of services, joining of competitions (Tournaments, Ladders & Leagues) & user profiles. It was also to be built on a new API that would eventually power both the mobile apps & web products.

I was the Product Manager leading the development of the apps. Ars Futura and I would have daily meetings where we dove into the product so they could understand the ins and outs of every aspect of our platform. They would come back each day having done more independent research and provide new ideas they had for how features could work and many new features we ended up implementing. It was the most collaborative experiences I've had to date.

When designs & ideas were presented, we were able to discuss them and accept or reject ideas with no issues on either side. Ars Futura was responsible for the UX/UI of our mobile apps in addition to development of the Android app. They provided wireframes, site flows & final UI in stages of each aspect of the app.

What was the team composition?

Ars Futura had a team of 2 Designers and one Android Engineer for the duration of this project. When new work slowed down, we did have no have new work for them and we went down to part time designer for intermittent projects in the last year.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We saw an extremely increase in registrations and and fast adoption of the mobile apps. Within 1 year of launching the mobile apps, they were 50% of our overall traffic and resulted in an increase in paid user conversion.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Ars Futura are extremely easy to work with. They are located in Croatia and we're in the United States and they were always willing to work later hours to accommodate our schedules. We had a very close line of communication at all times and very rarely were expectations or deadlines not met or exceeded. We used Zeplin to manage designs & Jira to assign work and track projects. Eventually we switched from Zeplin to Abstract for all designs.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I'm most impressed at how quickly they are able to digest a product or idea and bring it to life. Our products had been poorly designed originally so they inherited a very disjointed platform that was extremely unfriendly to new users and quickly figured it out and started making adjustments based on the data we were seeing.

They really have a talent for taking a complicated product and user flow and understanding it's pain points and how to improve things for the user and business.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Much of the desktop site work was done web first instead of mobile web first. This was done because Mobile Web was not a priority but this made it difficult to then adapt some of the designs to mobile web once we started down that path. Thinking ahead, I would have preferred taking a mobile web first approach to our desktop site. Once we identified this as a problem, they did adjust and start mobile web first from that point forward.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

My company delivers trusted data and business insight software for healthcare. I run operations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Ars Futura?

We hired Ars Furtura for design and frontend website development. We needed a trusted partner to work as an extension of our development team.

What were your goals for this project?

Responsive design, developed in Javascript and tested across a variety of browsers.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We looks are three potential partners. The development and operations team lead the selection process. Key considerations included development capabilities, price and referrals.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They designed and developed a new front-end website that connected to an existing company Platform. We provided detailed specifications and had bi-weekly scrum meetings with ArsFutura. We communicated frequently and very effectively via Slack and video calls.

What was the team composition?

The ArsFutura team included one project lead, one designer and two developers. All were very competent and great to work with.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

The project came in on time, in scope and on budget.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project Management was successfully provided by both the internal Team and the Ars Futura team. We communicated frequently and very effectively via Slack and video calls.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The ArsFutura team is so easy to work with. They are extremely capable from a technical standpoint. They are efficient and effective in communication and work.

Are there any areas for improvement?

None. We were very pleased.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Forgeant is an employee experience platform that primarily services HR leaders in helping them better understand and improve their employees' sentiment at work.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Ars Futura?

They replaced a previous dev team that wasn't working out. They did a complete redesign of the UI interface. THey then proceeded to build our platform from the ground up.

What were your goals for this project?

To build a platform for our startup. The success of our company depended on them succeeding ... which they did.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

The came highly recommended through Harvard's Innovation Lab. They also have very impressive experience with other large, well-established software companies. They are also very easy to work with and very good at communicating.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They built our online dashboard and customer feedback platform.

What was the team composition?

The team consisted of two developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

They made our business possible.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management was arranged by zoom stand-ups that we conducted twice a week.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their flexibility, communication, and, most importantly, their skill-level impressed us.

Are there any areas for improvement?

nope

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of MITURF, a sports and recreation booking system for scheduling payments. It allows people to discover and submit booking requests for reservations for sporting facilities like soccer fields, basketball courts, and tennis courts. It also handles payment processing, scheduling, and organization for a venue or space provider to streamline their operation.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ars Futura?

We needed help with discovery, design, and development for our booking system.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They spearheaded the project from the very beginning, understanding what the core problems we were trying to address were, as well as possible solutions. After providing guidance to help us sketch out the wireframes, they had me go to the customers and get feedback on what their pain points were and iterate on them. They also helped conceptualize the ins and outs of the product and the lifecycle of the customer journey map. Further, they navigate me through the ways of building a proper product. They were part consultancy, design, and development.

They’re really good at challenging the current MVP and iterations of that MVP. They also were there to identify the brand and what we represented. They did the building, the development, the design, and the deploying of a responsive website, but also an iOS app. We worked in React Native and Ruby on Rails based on their recommendation, which focused on how people would find it easy to use.

What is the team composition?

I worked with the CEO and the CTO. I also dealt with some other junior people that knew what they were doing. There were marketing UX/UI designers, front- and backend developers, and an iOS developer.

How did you come to work with Ars Futura?

I sent out an RFP to a lot of firms across the world because I wanted to get different perspectives and inputs. They all were a little too expensive for what needed to get done and overly complex for the process. I also didn’t like a lot of the products they had done for previous clients.

Ars Futura was really good at presenting their approach. I hired them because of their knowledge and expertise in building similar marketplace platforms. They really knew what they were talking about in terms of the MVP and working with me along the way. They didn’t put a lot of stress on the financials because they really wanted to understand what I was trying to achieve.

They blew me away by focusing first on the problem, the goal, trying to educate me on the scope, and adding more scope. They showed me what areas in the product were going to require more design, development, and testing, which allowed me to reassess and prioritize the scope in a way that made the most sense. They were a full end-to-end company. Another main reason I went with them was because of how clear their communication was.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $100,000 Canadian ($76,000 USD). 

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from May 2015 until September 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

When we were in development and testing, they really got it. They got the defects and bugs through three different testing phases before going live. We collected feedback from end customers if the website and app are intuitive or if there are any problems, and it’s been favorable. It was fair to measure them on how easy it was to use, the feedback from customers and end-users, and the quality of the product.

How did Ars Futura perform from a project management standpoint?

It was one of the cleanest projects that I’ve worked on. I’ve partnered with many companies that use everything from PowerPoint and spreadsheets just so many tools, but Ars Futura was really good with project managing in an agile approach using Asana, Trello, and Kanban Boards. They did a really good job of defining the road map.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They knew that this was going to be really impactful for me. Instead of focusing just on the product, they were helping me achieve certain marketing goals. They were great at offering free services like creating landing pages, marketing materials, and creating a little bit of hype. They were able to get me to do some promotional work while the product was being built like teaser images. They went above and beyond their contract.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could help me tap into and identify how to use government credits, whether that was an affiliate in Canada or Ontario. There’s a lot of government credits that go toward entrepreneurs building businesses and products. They could have helped me figure out what the most economical way would have been to get into this engagement without me having to pay for everything on my own. They could also create a division where they’d have business analysts apply for grants to help me accomplish these goals.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don’t underestimate their capabilities and trust their knowledge and expertise. Be ready to come up with discussion points to help them. Don’t come with a solution, but come with a problem.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO & founder of an IoT company that builds products for life science, biotech, and healthcare industries. Our core thesis is that there is a lot of information captured manually or not captured at all. While some could be data from machines and instruments, a lot of it is due to environmental changes.

For example, if we’re dealing with a drug development or discovery that involves chemicals and biological materials, temperature and humidity can play a role in the outcome quality. Our company makes data collection seamless through IoT devices, cloud & software services, and other analytics.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ars Futura?

When we’re building a complex vertical stack, there are a lot of layers, from hardware to communication to visualizations, and more. When there are all of these different layers, problems can arise at any time. We hired Ars Futura to assist with that. We needed to fill in the gap with workers that could hit the ground running and become part of our core team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Over the last couple of years, we’ve engaged with Ars Futura on a variety of tasks. We work with them remotely. During the primary period where they worked on our full-stack, we did backend development and frontend UI implementation work with them. For the full-stack, they did not work on the hardware. We also worked on the backend of our database with their team.

A lot of business logic goes into the alert and notification services that we provide on our website. One part of the engagement involved the full-stack, while the other part was using their services on mobile products for Android. There’s also an IoT monitoring service with a frontend GUI and built on Ruby. They worked with us on cloud-oriented processes.

What is the team composition?

Our main point of contact is Nikola (CEO, Ars Futura). On average, we’ve worked with four people. During the last few years, there have been times where we only worked with two or three, and sometimes where we worked with five or six. A few of them focus on Android work. There is one UX/UI designer and one primary who works on the full-stack.

How did you come to work with Ars Futura?

Early on, we brought on a contractor who had worked with Ars Futura. When we were talking to him about augmenting our team, he mentioned them. I had talked to and interviewed several other remote teams in Eastern Europe. A lot of them are large dev shops with heavy turnover.

With Ars Futura, they’re a smaller firm with no turnover problems. It felt like they were a close-knit group. The offshore services industry is smaller in Croatia as well. To put it bluntly, when their staff moves on, they’ll remain on good terms with each other. This went into our reasoning for choosing them.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing relationship with Ars Futura started in February 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It’s been an amazing experience working with Ars Futura. While I don’t have specific metrics, I can say that they feel like an extension of our team. They give us a lot of attention. Once we brought Ars Futura on, things improved during the early stages.

Their team is top-notch. I’ve recommended them to several of my friends and other founders. The only challenge has been with the time difference. They’re adaptable to our needs but are honest with us. For example, we needed Python development and they were transparent that it was outside of their skillset. They were upfront, saying that we could find another vendor to help if we needed to. I found that to be positive. We consider Ars Futura as part of our core team.  

How did Ars Futura perform from a project management standpoint?

We’re basically three different teams, including the mobile and UX side. Although we had one point of contact through Nikola, we had direct lines of communication with their staff and ours. The UX team worked with their lead, and the Android developers worked with theirs directly.

However, if there were any issues, everything would go through Nikola. Since they’re based in Croatia, they visited us for a few weeks last year. They’re on daily standups, communicating with our team quite frequently. Our project management tools were Jira, Slack, and Confluence.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I appreciate how genuine the team at Ars Futura is. Nikola and his partner were roommates in college and started coding on the side to make extra money. They’ve become our friends now; they want our company to grow. The best way to describe this is when somebody said to me that whenever I work with Ars Futura, the word “we” is used. We’re part of each other’s teams. All of these positive characteristics exemplify who they are.

Are there any areas they could improve?

This isn’t too much of them but has to do with the fact that the industry is lacking in Croatia. If they hope to ramp up quickly, they’re going to have to recruit developers from other areas. It takes longer for them to staff up because of this. Customers can’t go to them and ask for three more developers with a weeks’ notice. It is far more a function of their geography though, and not on Ars Futura themselves.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Since they’re the first remote team I’ve worked with, I don’t have anything to compare them to. I would say to invite their team to your office. Have them spend a week with your team. The people who Ars Futura recruits have such an emotional connection to their clients. They’re not focused on shopping jobs.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the director of software development at Common Sensing. We make devices that record how much insulin somebody has injected. Our devices are Bluetooth enabled and connect to a mobile app to show a person’s insulin intake in the form of a logbook.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ars Futura?

We needed a mobile app developed by professionals that was stable and did not have crashes or bugs.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Ars Futura developed both an iOS and Android version of a mobile app. Their team ensured that the app could connect to the insulin devices through Bluetooth. They were responsible for both front- and backend development.

What is the team composition?

It’s fluctuated over time, but I have worked with 3–5 of their engineers at any given time.

How did you come to work with Ars Futura?

I had worked with Ars Futura at a previous position, and when I moved to this company and needed mobile app developers, I got in touch with Nicola (CEO & Founder, Ars Futura). I explained the scope of the project and we made sure to get the right people on the team.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement with Ars Futura began in May 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

When we first came to Ars Futura, we wanted to improve the stability of our app to prevent crashes. Their team has gotten the results we wanted, with a dramatic improvement in stability.

I’ve managed a few developers in my career, both internal and external, and the developers at Ars Futura are excellent. They’re the same quality of engineers I would hire myself. They’re great communicators and overall pleasant people. Their talented team always produces high-quality work.

How did Ars Futura perform from a project management standpoint?

The whole team at Ars Futura is very responsive. Our teams would have stand-up meetings a few times a week and would frequently communicate on Slack. Their engineers typically get back to me within an hour.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I would highly recommend them to anyone looking for this kind of service. I’d worked with them before and came back wanting to work with them again, which really speaks to the quality of their work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I’m really happy with their work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It’s a lot like hiring an individual that would work in-house, except they happen to work in a different office.