Ascendum Solutions

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the founder of Lemeno, an instant planning app.

What challenge were you trying to address with Sourcebits?

I needed a partner to reprogram my app and develop a working MVP.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Sourcebits’ job was to build a native app for both Android and iOS. I already had the UI and features list completed; they just needed to do the code. However, every build they sent was amateur and riddled with bugs. The final product was unusable, and none of the code was salvageable.

What is the team composition?

The project manager was my main point of contact.

How did you come to work with Sourcebits?

I found them on Clutch.

How much have you invested with them?

I spent around $120,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from 2016–2017.

Describe the impact this engagement has had on your business.

I ended up having to close my business because I spent most of my budget on their development that didn’t result in a viable product. Another firm evaluated their code and said none of it was usable. I considered legal action against them because they didn’t deliver anything they promised.

How was project management handled?

None of their senior membership reached out to me, even when things were going poorly and I asked to speak to them. The team seemed to change constantly, undermining any sense of consistency or stability. They didn’t document anything and wasted our time; the project was supposed to take six months but lasted a year and a half.

No one seemed concerned about my project or the level of dissatisfaction I was experiencing. The engagement was an incredibly unpleasant experience that was full of missed deadlines and broken promises. They never met with me in person and didn’t seem to care that their code was completely non-functioning.

In what specific areas can they improve?

They didn’t seem to have the ability to produce any sort of decent product. They tried to convince me to continue working with them, but their developers didn’t appear to have the skill set to build what I needed.

What advice do you have for clients with similar needs to yours?

Thoroughly vet them before deciding to become partners.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We provide a management system for funds, and the company aim is to have our app work as a talent agency, centering around YouTube and social media. We are a family-run company. I am the owner.

What challenge were you trying to address with Sourcebits?

I have no clue about coding apps, but I had an idea. I needed a company to develop it and ended up choosing Sourcebits.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our main goal was to create an app which would appeal to our target audience and work flawlessly. From design to functionality, we hit all those marks dead-on. We shot for a darker design with neon coloring around letters, making the app pop more at night. Its logo is bubbly and fun, looking like something users would want to click. The app features a QR code system for getting into events.

How did you come to work with Sourcebits?

I emailed 5 companies about my idea and had introduction calls with all of them. We chose Sourcebits because they had a good system for dealing with smaller startup companies, including offering post-support. The other vendors dealt mainly with large name-brand organizations.

How much have you invested with Sourcebits?

The cost of our project with Sourcebits was between $50,000 and $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Sourcebits in the spring of 2016.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We have shown the app to friends in the age group to whom we were marketing and received compliments all around, from the design to the functionality of the app.

Sourcebits' office is in San Francisco, and we met them there to have meetings on our idea. From the start, I enjoyed Sourcebits' approach to us as a small company. I'd never dabbled in the app market, but Sourcebits helped me learn how to get an app out successfully. This made the whole process easier and more fun. I feel that we will be very successful once the app launches because we have a much more personal understanding of how everything works.

How did Sourcebits perform from a project management standpoint?

Sourcebits had daily calls with me, helping keep things in check. One of our goals was to get the app launched by Halloween. The deadline was not hit due to my side, and it was to be expected. This was our only missed goal and I have nothing bad to say about the process.

What did you find most impressive about Sourcebits?

The level of attention and helpfulness Sourcebits showed at a personal level was excellent. Sourcebits has worked with larger companies but also with people like me, who don't know what they're doing.

Are there any areas Sourcebits could improve?

We had some issues with legal documents behind the app, given that Sourcebits' offices are in India and California has some stringent laws. It was understandable, but Sourcebits could have dealt with this more efficiently on their side.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Sourcebits?

Clients should be ready for some paperwork confusion related to Sourcebits' location. Other than this, we've had a very enjoyable time developing the app. I have no tips, other than for clients to make sure they don't miss any calls.

We are building an app that makes it easy to understand our eating and exercise patterns, and helps us develop healthier habits. I am a co-founder and chief executive officer.

Many of us try to stick to healthy choices but fail. Dieting is not a sustainable solution, calorie tracking, and detailed meal logging gets boring, and despite all the health craze, especially with wearables and activity trackers, 2 in 3 Americans are overweight and 1 in 3 is obese. Choozini™ is built on our co-founder’s experience as a surgeon, working for almost 20 years with people for whom behavior change is life critical, and it incorporates the principles of cognitive behavioral theory, gamification, and machine learning to help us develop and stick to healthy habits. It offers a quick and easy way to help us understand our daily eating and exercise patterns, and empowers us to take an active role in our behaviors. Choozini™ is fun, rewarding, and social, and it will become our trusted companion in our daily routine. With Choozini™, cool visuals show your progress; a personalized game experience rewards every small success; accumulated points lead to healthy perks, and tips and buddies are at your fingertips.

We were looking for a mobile app development partner to bring our vision to reality.

We selected Sourcebits after interviewing a number of independent contractors, offshore companies, and three American-based mobile app developers.

For our app, UI/UX [user interface/user experience] is fundamental. We have development in house and were looking for a partner that would help us with a compelling design that would make the user experience easy and give us an edge. 

The scope included strategy, design, and support. Sourcebits managed all of these aspects for almost 6 months.

We are extremely satisfied with the deliverables of Sourcebits. The project was managed very professionally. We were allocated both a project manager and a senior designer, and we did have the opportunity to brainstorm with two more team members. 

Sourcebits delivered exactly to the project scope and within budget and time constraints.

What is unique about the team is that they embraced our concept with enthusiasm, professionalism, and a very personal touch. 

In hindsight, we would have asked our developer to spend more time working directly with the Sourcebits design team, and not through the product manager. That would have saved us time in the clarifications that our developer was asking at a later stage.

Please describe your organization.

We are developing an app for churches.

What is your position?

I am the founder of the company.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Sourcebits?

I wanted to create an application that would allow churches to connect with their congregations. They would be able to see what people in their local communities are praying about and create sermons based on those needs. For example, they could address drug addiction, helping bring the congregation together. The churches need to talk about what we, as people, need to hear. They need to talk about actual problems, rather than how Moses parted the Red Sea. 

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

Sourcebits was helping me build an app for the web and mobile devices. I went to them with the list of features that I needed. We had a work session in order to decide what we needed and how it would be built.

How did you come to work with Sourcebits?

Gartner picked them as a top developer in 2014. I had a choice between a company in San Francisco and one in New York. Sourcebits is closer to me. I was excited to engage with their company at first because they had great methodologies, all the necessary write-ups were in place, security was taken care of, and they promised not to build mediocre apps.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

I initially paid a $20,000 deposit for the development. The total cost was $145,000. Sourcebits wanted to charge me an additional $30,000 in order to fix all the bugs and defects in the app. This project was run with my life savings. I put that money aside and quit my job in order to work for my faith. After rebuilding my web application, I will have no more funds.

What is the status of this engagement?

The contract was signed in October 2014. I was supposed to be contacted in December in order to start the work. Since no one contacted me, I went to their management and was assigned a new project manager. In essence, the project only started in February 2015. It was supposed to be delivered in April, but that never happened. They kept missing sprints. I've since started the project again, working with a developer in China. We expect to launch it next week.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Sourcebits promised to deliver the app in September 2015, which turned into October. I started to get aggravated. November came, and they told me that my build was ready. I also had some change requests, but Sourcebits told me they'd been fixed, along with the bugs. In the end, I received a product that wouldn't even work. I opened up the web platform, which only went in circles. I tried using the application on my phone, and it didn't work either. I've also logged around 200 security issues with my application.

At that point, I concluded that they didn't have a moral compass. They wanted an additional $30,000, so I walked away. I contacted an attorney and told them that, if they can deliver a product that is defect-free, secure, and ready for the App Store within seven days, I would pay them their $30,000. They contacted me on the last day of the deadline, unable to deliver the working app. I told them to give me my money back, but they kept giving me the runaround. "We need legal to take a look at this," or "we need a few days." I told them that I'd provide the chronology of the whole project. I had a friend who has contract knowledge talk to them, going through the whole project timeline. Their CEO asked if that was a formal request for getting our money back and told us that he would need it in writing. I have a recording of that conversation with him, telling us they'd reply within 48 hours. I never heard from him. Overall, the project with Sourcebits was one debacle after another. My vision is in bits and pieces and they were the source of a lot of headaches.

I kept emailing him, asking what they were doing. I asked for a response by April 18. They asked for a week's time, but never got back to us. On Thursday, I sent him a note with the project chronology, telling him that I would be including their investors and board members in the carbon copy, telling them how the process had been delayed and how Sourcebits failed to resolve the issue. He told us that their legal team was looking at it, basically the same thing he told us in January.

I proceeded to throw him under the bus with his investors, but I didn't hear back from anyone. I find Sourcebits to be a fraudulent company. I've submitted my experience to Channel 5 [a local CBS-TV affiliate in San Francisco] in order to see if I could get some news coverage on it. There needs to be legislation that stops developers from building products without the right certifications and checkmarks. We need to push for this as consumers.

How did Sourcebits perform from a project management standpoint?

At the moment, I have nothing in terms of a working product. I've walked away from their company. In the beginning, there were sprint dates that they were supposed to meet. Sourcebits never met them. They provided me with release notes that were essentially reprinted with the addition of one extra element. I was charged $25,000 for each of them. In other words, they fixed one item and ignored another 35. This happened four or five times, and I didn't catch on until the end.

My project manager kept telling me that all the bugs had been fixed, everything was fine, and they would deliver the app by a certain date. They literally missed four or five dates. Each iteration came with bugs and spelling errors. I told them that they needed to be fixed, to which I was told that I would be charged by "X" amount for the extra work. I didn't have a working product, so I couldn't understand the overcharging.

This went on for around a year. Sourcebits sourced my product to India. I told them that I wanted it back in the United States, but they never brought it back. I was given a whole new project team with which I started working. They would tell me one thing on the phone and do another, like the fact that I wouldn't be charged for an issue on which they were late, and then come back and bill me. None of the calls were recorded. They used Skype instead of WebEx, which allows recording.

What is your summation of your working relationship with Sourcebits?

They were disappointing, and I am completely dissatisfied. The whole project was a disaster.

Please describe your organization. What is your position?

It's a two-person company; I'm one of the founders. We're a startup, and we developed a social mobile app. 

What business challenge were you trying to address with Sourcebits?

We wanted to develop a mobile app for Android and iOS, and it had an extensive back-end. You can use pictures and because it has the social integration we needed to keep everything in a database on the back-end.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

It was iOS and Android app development.

How did you come to work with Sourcebits?

We did some research, and we started with eight companies and narrowed it down to two. At the end, we interviewed both of them and picked Sourcebits. One of the reasons we went with Sourcebits is because they had an infrastructure where you could choose whether you wanted the development done in India or San Francisco. The other thing they had was enough depth in different expertise that we could get both the backend, the Android frontend, and the iOS frontend done with Sourcebits. They actually developed the two applications in physically different locations based on different areas of expertise, and we appreciated that.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

On average we had between 10 and 12 people working full time for nine months to a year.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

As far as the app goes, we've been very happy with the work Sourcebits has done. The user interface was well done. There were very few bugs, and they took care of all of them by the time we were done. We were happy with them.

What distinguishes Sourcebits from other providers?

We had a team of 10 to 12 people. Each member had a different expertise anywhere from user interface to quality assurance. Each member cared about doing a good job and the quality of the product. I could reach them at almost any hour and talk. Sourcebits was extremely dedicated and very customer focused.

Is there anything Sourcebits could have improved or done differently?

No.

Please describe your company.

Our company is one of the most popular cricket websites in the world. We are into cricket scores, cricket commentary, almost everything related to cricket.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I am the product manager at Cricbuzz, and I handle the Cricbuzz mobile department. I handle all the mobile apps that we have for iOS, Android, and other platforms. I also take care of client relations.

What was your goal for the work with Sourcebits?

We already had an app for iPhone, but we didn’t have an iPad version of the application. So, that was one of our primary challenges. We wanted to come up with a new app that works both on iPad and iPhones, with different layouts. The old app was simple in terms of design, and the thought process that had gone into the app. We wanted to re-engineer and rethink it, and design a much better app. We wanted to have the best offering when it comes to cricket mobile apps on iOS. That was the primary goal. We didn’t plan on developing it in house, so we wanted to go with a company that has the expertise in developing for iOS apps. That’s how we found Sourcebits.

Please describe the scope of their work.

Sourcebits’ work included development, design, and training. The product was handled completely by Sourcebits, including the design. They utilized input from us, but they started with the design and development, and the technical support as well. Sourcebits handled the complete product.

What was your process for selecting Sourcebits with which to work?

A staff member had heard about Sourcebits, and their skill in developing mobile apps. I believed that they were the best fit, and we went ahead with the deal.

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

It is about $100,000. Close to that amount.

When was the latest milestone completed for that work?

The project is not complete yet. We split the project into two pieces. We wanted the app to be out by October or November of 2013, which is when we released Phase 1 of the app. There were a couple of features that we pushed to finish. We expect to finish the development and everything on the second version by the end of next week.

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

After we released Phase 1 of the new app, it took two days to top the charts among the sports apps on iOS. It is still the number one app on iPhone. On iPad, it took a while, but on iPhone, it took two days to reach number one for all sports apps.

How did Sourcebits perform?

It’s been very good. We were very impressed with their developers. The designers were very good, and some of them were outstanding. With the design, there is a little room for improvement, but we are happy with their work.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

We appreciate their process, and there are no loopholes. They started from scratch and, even though it might take a few more weeks compared to other companies, their process is properly set, so there are no loopholes, and there is no back and forth. Their process is systematic, and we enjoyed working with them.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or something that you might do differently?

Perhaps, they could reduce the project time. We are happy with them and got our money’s worth.

Can you talk a little about what your company does?

We are a software development company. Our core product is a desktop Mac and Windows accounting application for small businesses. We have about 100,000 customers worldwide.

We originally approached Sourcebits, and originally contemplated outsourcing because all the development prior to 2009 or 2010 was done in-house. So, we had a couple of ideas that were more or less self contained. We were never very optimistic that outsourcing was going to be the right fit for us because we tend to focus on the Mac platform. Even though the specific product that was our first entry into outsourcing was a Web app, we're very focused on design and user experience. In my experience, and maybe my stereotype, outsourcing resulted in a kind of utilitarian applications, and not really something that was polished.

We dove into the water because we didn’t have the bandwidth to pursue the specific product unless we outsourced. So, we said, "Let's give it a shot. Give it five or six months." We just kept piling on responsibility as time went on and more and more products. We started small and gave them more responsibility as we went.

Has the scope of the relationship changed in time?

They started with the design, and we've always worked with them on design. Initially, we did the whole thing. We did design, development, QA, and project managements, and we scaled back. Since we are a development company, it's not like a company that doesn’t have any development capacity. So, we scaled back, we do the project management ourselves, and we do the QA ourselves.

So, even up till now, if we need to do some design work, we lean on them. We'll maybe sketch out in pencil, and then scan and email them something. Then, they'll give us a wire frame, and we'll go round and round. Then, they'll do a mock-up, and then we'll go to a development stage.

It started off with the Web app, and then the second project was our mobile OS app, which is a companion app to our desktop app, and that's been very successful. Then, we launched a second Web app, so two Web apps and one mobile app. Then, we've used a little bit of QA for one of our desktop apps just recently.

It sounds like you're pretty happy with the results?

For us, I don't think we would have ever done it otherwise because to find some developers and designers that would be able to do what we needed to do, it just wouldn’t happen. We struggle as it is hard to find Mac desktop software developers. We're only 30 or 40 minutes outside of New York City, but even that close, it's almost impossible. We just wouldn’t have been able to do it.

When working with Sourcebits, is there anything that you find unique or special compared to other developers you may have worked with?

We get five calls a week. Maybe that's an exaggeration, but 10 calls a month for the last seven or eight years. What I've found to be incredibly unique, and I'm no expert, so I could be wrong. But, from my perspective, has been their focus on the design. They really are prideful about making sure that what they do, whether it's on a mobile, Web, or desktop platform. They make sure that they have a polished final product and, it's not just like one or two designers. They attract designers that are as good as the ones we hired internally.

Looking back on the project, is there anything you'd do differently a second time around or that you would like Sourcebits to improve upon?

The biggest learning curve for us was about maybe six to nine months after we started, we really ratcheted up the communication. We went to more or less a Scrum development model, where we would literally talk to them every day on Skype. Sometimes, it would be two minutes, sometimes it would be an hour. I think we were probably inefficient the first six or nine months. I think they responded to us pushing and responding to us, communicating as much as possible.

Can you talk a little bit about what your company does?

We are a software company that has actually been developing ever since the 5 1/4-inch floppy disks. We develop software for education, specifically special education.

What is your position within the company?

I am the president of the company.

What was your original business goal or objective for undertaking the project  with Sourcebits?

The original project that we had done with them was not necessarily a mobile project, but it was a Web development project. It was basically to update our software, which was developed in what’s called Authorware, which is basically a ticking time bomb, Adobe bought it, and then discontinued support for it. We held off for as long as we could, and then contracted with Sourcebits to develop an HTML5 version of it that ran on the Internet and mobile devices, particularly the iPad. That’s a big deal, in education obviously, but especially in special education.

What was your process originally for selecting Sourcebits to work with?

I was the one who did my own research on several companies on the Internet, and got several different price quotes. I talked to a bunch of different people. The reason we decided to work with Sourcebits in the first place was that they actually had a project manager who had worked in education previously, and he was local. He’s only about an hour or two away from us. We’ve been very happy with everything that they’ve done.

Can you tell me about the scope of the project?

It was a conversation project of software that we had, but like I said it was developed using old technology. It was not an easy conversion because it basically all needed to be rewritten, and it needed to all be modified, obviously, going from a software installable to an internet-based product. What else do you want to know about it, I guess?

Did Sourcebits handle both the design and the development of the app?

They did, and actually the main project that they’ve been working on is a Web app. It’s not necessarily even a mobile app, but they have done two mobile apps for us that goes along with our product line and tie back to the management system that’s in our Web app. They’ve done the design and development for all of that.

How long ago was the most recent project completed?

Well, we’re still working on the project. We started it like two years ago, and we finished one of those probably this summer. We’re already coming out with a new version of it, which is going to have enhanced interactivity with the Web app, so it’s not really done – ever.

Can you provide a general cost estimate for the work to date? 

The mobile pricing is obviously going to be a lot different than our Web-based system. Our Web-based system had a lot of different products in it, and several thousand hours of assessment and instruction. That project is a lot bigger so that project is probably close to $400,000 or $500,000 altogether. But, to be honest, they’ve gone above and beyond in everything that they’ve done. The apps themselves were about $20,000 each, which I found actually to be on the low end when I was doing cost estimates originally for iOS development, and I was pitching the idea of these apps.

In my opinion, they’ve really shined in the Web development. Sourcebits had to develop a very complex management system, which took us 30 years to get it right. They took it, and not only put it all up on the Internet, but they’ve enhanced it in every way possible. So, I’m very pleased with what they’ve done in both aspects, but especially the Web development.

It sounds like you’re very pleased with the work they’ve done so far?

Yes.

Do you find anything unique or special about Sourcebits compared to other companies that you’ve worked with in the past?

Well, the way that the company is set up, they have talent that’s really all over the world. For example, our chief technical officer on our project is in Poland, the visual designer is in India, the project manager is in Warsaw, the company’s actually in San Francisco, and every Tuesday and Thursday morning, I do a Skype call with all these people in all these locations, which is pretty unique. But, they use these tools that allow for constant communication and collaboration. Literally, I can post my feedback and, in essence, describe what I want in terms of project direction, post that on this tool that they use, and then they’re all working on it on the other side of the world while I’m sleeping. Then, I get up in the morning, and I’ve got code and software to review, so it’s much more efficient that way. This project is going much quicker than we had hoped when we started looking for vendors for redevelopment.

Are there any areas that Sourcebits could improve, or you would do differently a second time around?

I don’t know that there’s anything that would be their fault, I guess, in terms of improving. But, just the fact that you do have people all over the place, and you do lose some things in translation, no matter how well you try to communicate – there are some discrepancies there. But, they’ve always made things right, so I can’t complain about anything.

Can you give some background on what your company does?

We are building a mobile sports tournament network, basically using social games to create a competitive landscape for people to play against each other. Sourcebits has been working on our flagship game. It’s available on iOS right now, but it’s basically an asynchronous game that lets people play golf against each other for virtual money and virtual skins. Think of it as a virtual experience for golfers. We were in beta for about a month, and we just released it in October. It’s done pretty well so far.

What was your main goal or objective for choosing to work with Sourcebits?

We had a pretty big challenge in front of us. We wanted to build an asynchronous network that did a ton of things, from in-game chat and dual currencies to managing a ton of downloads and customers to doing a bunch of things. On top of that, it has to be pretty extensible because we had a pretty extensive road map for it. That was the first challenge. The second part of it is we had to build that back in conjunction with the first golf game. Building the equivalent of a AAA Unity-based game on mobile, and a pretty beefy backend of the platform was quite the task. On top of all of that, we had to do it cost effectively because we’re a startup. We shopped quite a few companies to be able to pull this off. There were very few who can execute the service side and mobile client side well. On top of that, we need gaming space. We had to find people who understood gaming – the whole development in Unity and xCode – and the server side.

Sourcebits was the main company that had the most knowledge in this area to execute?

Yes. They were the only ones who actually fit the entire criteria for us. There were companies that were public engineering companies that could do the backend work, but they couldn’t do the mobile work. There were guys who could do the frontend work and do the mobile work, but they had no game experience. They had more experience within apps, which is a different animal. We needed a shop that had modelers, animators, and frontend and backend engineers. That’s just a hard combo to find to be able to do it cost-effectively. That’s partly because we looked at 10 development shops, and they were not agile enough to do the stuff that we’re trying to do. In fact, nobody was agile enough to do the stuff we wanted to do.

What aspects of the project was Sourcebits involved in?

They were involved in a lot of the game design and the user interaction that drove the game design. It’s more a modeling and animation of the course, so we gave them specs for the golf course. They had to build a 3D golf course out of that for us. They had to rig and build characters for us for the game, all the clubs, and then all of the coding. They did all the engineering work.

Can you give a general cost estimate for the project?

I could say it was under $1 million. We’ve been working with them for a year and a half.

Is the game available for Android?

No, Android will be coming out next year. We’ve been basically honing the game on iOS. We want to build the best game we can before we start pushing it on other platforms.

How happy are you with the results of what Sourcebits has delivered?

We’re very happy. In fact, we’ve got a pretty good working relationship with them. So much so that we’ll extend at least another six months of development work with them going into not only numbers and 2.0 of this game, but the second title that we’re going to be releasing.

When working with Sourcebits, is there anything unique or special about them compared to other companies that you may have worked with in the past?

I think that the unique piece of it, for me, has been the fact that if I didn’t have Sourcebits, I would have had to source three types of different companies to get this work done. They packed a lot under one roof, which is really what we wanted from them.

Looking back on the work completed, is there anything that you’d do differently or that Sourcebits could improve upon?

That’s a good question. It’s been kind of an evolving relationship. We’ve done better in every release, every release. I think the big thing is giving them more detail to go on versus hoping that they understand what you’re talking about without really detailed game design. At the end of the day, getting them to understand what’s in our head is the toughest thing, whether it’s Sourcebits or anybody else. I think more detailed documentation would help them.