bright inventions

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the head of product at Finebite, a mobile solution for restaurants.

For what projects/services did your company hire Bright Inventions?

We hired Bright Inventions for mobile app development services, including agile process management, coding, testing, and ongoing maintenance.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to move from the early stages of building an MVP to delivering a fully scalable product.

How did you select this vendor?

I had previously worked with Bright Inventions and was impressed with their responsible and flexible approach.

Describe the project in detail.

After gathering our requirements and expectations, they initiated the development of the app. Their team guided the entire process, frequently collaborating with our internal developers and designers. They completed and launched the product for download on both Android and iOS devices.

What was the team composition?

There were three developers, two project leads, and a scrum master.

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

We’re very satisfied with the product that Bright Inventions delivered. Both versions of the app were developed according to our needs. We’re planning further cooperation with their team to add new features and services.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

They kept us in the loop at all times and provided updates and progress reports on a weekly basis. They were also very accessible, and interactions between our designers and their developers were productive. They made us feel like we were one cohesive team, even going so far as to build a workstation at their office for our lead backend developer.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They were committed to building the ideal product for our customers. Also, their attention to detail and scrutiny when dealing with technical challenges is noteworthy. We were pleased with their proactive approach and their genuine desire to see the success of the platform. They were constantly looking for ways to improve, and ensured that we had proper tracking tools and no potential scalability issues.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Estimated time-to-delivery is typically a struggle, especially during the first stages of the project, and there is a margin for improvement in this area.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I was CEO at AppAdvisors GmbH, a full-service, mobile app consulting and development agency with large to mid-sized business clients. It was founded in 2010 by Michael Reuter and myself.

For what projects/services did your company hire Bright Inventions?

They took over the development of the mobile applications plus the related backend systems we planned for our client.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was to deliver a mobile app which helped users to manage their medical cabinet at home by scanning the pharmaceutical ID on the medicine's packaging and fetching related data from an attached database. Users then could manually add further details such as household members, prescribing doctors, and symptoms/dosage of the medication.

How did you select this vendor?

The founders got in touch by email and sent their portfolio. Since they had worked for large companies before, we were positive that they could match our standards.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

We created a concept with wireframes as well as the app’s design in Photoshop. Bright Inventions received these documents, and after a kick-off meeting, went straight to work. We installed weekly calls for clarifying open questions and status updates. They developed the frontend for iOS and Android as well as the backend of the system for handling the external medical database and push notifications.

What was the team composition?

There were three to four people involved from Bright Inventions’ side over the course of the project, depending upon which part of the system was currently in development.

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

For us as an agency, the project was a good showcase for future clients in the health industry. Working with Bright Inventions is always a pleasure. The people involved are friendly and to the point. They’re also pragmatic, constructive, and punctual.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We worked with Jira, which helped to keep an overview from all sides and was especially useful when considering the distance between us. Other tools used include Slack, Skype, iMessage, and Trello.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their team is fast, friendly, effective, proactive, and able to deliver on time.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Sometimes, they didn’t have meeting rooms available for us, but they have moved to a new location so this has improved.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We were an eHealth startup that created an app for physiotherapists and clinics. The app was designed to digitally assist patients and aid their recovery in a faster, more reliable way.

What challenge were you trying to address with Bright Inventions?

We established a business plan and needed an external partner to complete the programming.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Bright Inventions developed our native iOS and Android apps from scratch. We spent two days at their office introducing our model. They built a minimally viable product that we showcased to customers. It received positive feedback, so we continued to work on a full product.

One of the tool’s functionalities was a recording process for exercise routines. Therapists could use it to send comments and other data to their patients, who could review those inputs and manage their exercises from home.

The platform has two versions: one for therapists and one for patients. The therapy version has more features, whereas the patient version is limited to exercise reviews and feedback.

What is the team composition?

They assigned a project manager and separate iOS and Android teams for our project—five or six people in total. The manager ensured that both versions worked well and complied with our requirements.

How did you come to work with Bright Inventions?

One of our investors had worked with them in the past and introduced us. We reached out to Bright Inventions and described our challenges.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost of their work was around €110,000 [$136,000 USD].

What is the status of this engagement?

Our first meeting was in December 2016. We started working with Bright Inventions in January 2017. The first development phase ended in July. A German software company became interested in purchasing our app, and Bright Inventions helped us with the documentation and legal process. Although the contract was complete, they still offered to help.

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

They delivered on time and on budget, which was one of our biggest criteria. From a qualitative standpoint, we were very satisfied. Our customers were also impressed with the speed and reliability of the app.

The platform was ultimately acquired by another company, so the code and overall work were definitely of a high quality.

How did Bright Inventions perform from a project management standpoint?

My business partner and the CTO of the company was the main point of contact for their team. He also tightly managed the process between our company and the developers. The project manager from their side acted as a single point of contact for us.

We had different levels of communication, mainly using Skype and management tools like Jira. Our five-person team also went to visit Bright Inventions in person.

We worked in two-week sprints, updating our vision and goals for their team at the end of each one. They delivered the MVP version on time and on budget.

Through open communication, we leveraged their experience in app development. Rather than developing the entire product, we worked in an iterative, lean startup manner. We were constantly improving the prototype towards our goal.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We were impressed by their young team’s experience level. They are a young team that works closely with the customer, and we had a similar approach. We learned more about the app and our customers with each step, and they implemented those findings into the next sprints. We became better and better throughout the collaboration. We would have paid much more in Germany for the same quality.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’ve had a great collaboration in terms of both production and communication. I have nothing negative to mention.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of a business that provides a holistic retail management system to small and medium-sized chains around the world. We also provide services for shoppers in those establishments as well as to commercial real estate and large brands.

What challenge were you trying to address with Bright Inventions?

We needed additional development capacity. I was frustrated with the caliber that I was dealing with, so I wanted a new outsourced team.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We first tasked Bright Inventions with a pilot, which they completed quickly and well. After that, nearly all of our development efforts became their responsibility. They took control of engineering, QA, and all other technical aspects of the company, as well as design and usability.

Our products are divided into three different toolboxes: shoppers, retail, and large brands. For the first, we built autonomous shopping capabilities that allow shoppers to purchase in and out of brick-and-mortar stores. These tools are for the end user (the shopper), and they come as native apps; we built an engine that can facilitate both Android and iOS native apps.

The second toolbox is a single point in the cloud that concentrates on all the different parts of a retail business. It’s a web service combined with a native point of sale product. Lastly, we built a special system for commercial real estate and large brands to monitor and manage their cohort of retailers. It allows them to see, in real time, what’s happening in a certain market or at a certain shopping center. The client can use it to optimize their rev share, and it contains other tools to enable better communication. Bright Inventions helped with all of these projects.

How did you come to work with Bright Inventions?

I was looking for international tech teams, and a colleague referred me to a different company. I began searching a directory that company was on, and Bright Inventions was also on it. I sent an email to many of the companies on that list and interviewed a few of them. Bright Inventions seemed to be a good match in terms of attitude and transparency, and they communicated well. They were familiar with what I wanted to do, so after our pilot, we met in-person, and I hired them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $200,000–$1,000,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve worked with them since 2013.

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

We don’t have any quantitative metrics, but Bright Inventions is a great partner and feels like part of our team. We trust them and their work so much that they have the liberty to make a lot of different decisions that aren’t typically allotted to contractors. They’re essentially responsible for certain pieces of our business; that’s how much we rely on them.

How did Bright Inventions perform from a project management standpoint?

They're extremely committed and responsive. We have a fairly small team with customers all over the world, so we can’t always invest a lot of time into Bright Inventions’ work, but they take ownership and always deliver.

We use Jira, Slack, Trello, and really any kind of tool that will help us get our work done. We have quite a bit of information that needs to be coordinated and multiple pieces of software, so we have to have a coherent process and clear guidelines for managing that.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Besides being extremely proficient in their field, they care about our business and want us to succeed. They also like to be challenged and are open to experimentation. Even if they’ve never used a certain technology before, they’ll give it a try and do their best.

They’re responsive, responsible, and enjoy their work. Most other companies provide standard and boring solutions, but Bright Inventions is innovative and engages with their work in new ways.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Most of the issues we have are on our end.

Please describe your organization.

My company is called 24 Insights. We are a crowd-based market research company. We offer insights from the point of sales via a network of app users. Our clients want to know about the availability, pricing, and promotions of certain products, and also how they are perceived by shoppers.

Our app users go into shops, take pictures, answer questions, and talk to service people. They give the information back to us; we go over it and put it into our own dashboards. We show how different promotions perform in different areas and if product availability is something that has regional patterns over different chains of supermarkets, etc.

What is your position?

I'm the Chief Technology Officer [CTO] within the company.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Bright Inventions?

Bright Inventions has been our development agency over the last two years. They have helped us with all our development needs including our main application, back-office, dashboard, and our mobile applications for Android and iOS.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

The main service they've provided is web development and the maintenance of our servers and system. They've also been involved in the domain and have helped us with the design of our features.

How did you come to work with Bright Inventions?

They had a previous relationship with our contact. We sent out the feature catalogue for our projects to a couple of companies. We talked to each of them and got an estimate for duration and budget for the initial phase.

Bright Inventions made a very good offer. We talked to them and found that they were invested in showing that they did good work, had great attitudes and good availability. We decided to work with them and have been very happy since.

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

We started out working at feature-based prices and eventually worked out a full time agreement. Now that the work has decreased for them, we are feature-based again. At the highest point, when we fully utilized two seniors from them, as well as some support, we were in the $90,000 range.

What is the status of this engagement?

We will eventually not need them at some point. We are growing and I'm building the in-house IT department. They have been, and still are, great for the project, and will continue to play a large role because they know the infrastructure. They have been responsible for building everything we have so far, but I'm gradually replacing outsource work with our own team.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

In terms of metrics, in the last year, we have grown and managed to get returning customers in the German fast loading consumer goods market, and several requests for white-labeling their software. This is something that I'm very proud of. The analytics part of the dashboard has been especially successful so far.

How did Bright Inventions perform from a project management standpoint?

I am satisfied with Bright Invention's work. Especially in the early stages, they delivered results very fast and were always very flexible. This is good for a startup, since we have feature requests that sometimes come on very short notice.

We were always able to work something out to get minimal versions running in little time and work on additional details later. They've also been helpful in discussing designs and structures for how the application should be set up.

We have a very good working relationship. When there have been quality issues, they were caused by us asking for something being done quickly, knowing the risks involved. They have been good with providing those risky features on time and without breaking everything. There have been some interesting things we've asked them to do, and they always delivered.

What distinguishes Bright Inventions from other providers?

The most impressive part has been Bright Invention's availability. You always have crunch-times in a startup, especially in the early stages. You expect an agency to be on board with that. Whenever there was a special need, and we needed extra availability at late hours, we were able to make things happen and work on solutions together. Their attitude is very solution-oriented; that's something I really enjoy.

In the early stages, when you need a fix for something, a creative approach is great. For later stages, you maybe need different ideas that involve architecture and long-term sustainability, but I can't say much about that. We've been working in a state of needing to ship things. We've always been able to make that happen.

Is there anything Bright Inventions could have improved or done differently?

It's a bit hard to say. We've been a very difficult client and they've made many accommodations for us. As a company, we will start to work more on test-driven design and scaling abilities of the system. In my experience with them, I can't say that everything has been 100% test-covered, but that was not our demand from them. They accommodated us very well.

Please describe your organization.

My company is building a mobile app that offers loyalty programs for independent venues, such as clubs, restaurants, pubs and bars. It works on both iOS and Android, and it is a new and proprietary technology. It's been available on the market for a year.

What is your position?

I am a co-founder of the company.

What business challenge were you trying to address with BrightInventions?

We started working with Bright Inventions as soon as we had an idea for the app. We didn't have any development capabilities, so we had to outsource.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

They built our mobile application and also provided back-end development using Ruby on Rails. We first started on our iOS app, and a couple of months after it was finished, we started on Android.

We handled the design ourselves. They were responsible for the development and testing.

How did you come to work with Bright Inventions?

We were working in the same building. I decided to hire them because I saw their work process and had a strong, professional relationship with them.

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

The price range is between $10,000-50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We wanted to build the basic MVP [minimum viable product]. After we did that, we started to build our own team. We have six of our own developers here. If we need any help, we will sometimes get in touch with Bright Inventions; our developers talk to their developers. They also helped us with recruiting. We didn't have the proper technical knowledge for that.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

They tried to be responsible, so whenever we came up with new ideas, they made it clear that it could extend the project and make it more expensive. Otherwise, they could have agreed to everything we wanted them to do, and it could have taken ages to complete. I like dealing with them.

How did Bright Inventions perform from a project management standpoint?

Everything we expected was delivered on time, and working with them was seamless. I was in touch directly with the developers, not with managers. The communication was quick and they were flexible.

What distinguishes Bright Inventions from other providers?

I liked that Bright Inventions was quite attentive to details. That's not always the case with developers. They actually care a lot about the design. You had to be almost perfect, and that was fine with us.

Is there anything Bright Inventions could have improved or done differently?

Testing. We were responsible for the testing. If they could implement something, that would be it.

Please describe your company and your position there.

etventure GmbH is a digital and innovation consultancy company that serves as the entrepreneurial partner to our clients, from idea to execution. I am the project lead and responsible for managing our team, subcontractors, and clients. 

For what projects/services did your company hire Bright Inventions?

We hired them for end-to-end development of a mobile app for Android and iOS. 

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to build an app specifically for people suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

How did you select this vendor?

From past experience with Bright Inventions, we were familiar with their customer-centric approach, good pricing, and in-house skill availability.

Describe the project in detail.

They developed a user-friendly app with a great UX that appeals to our target group. 

What was the team composition?

We provided a project manager, user empathy expert, marketing manager, designer, and a product manager. Bright Inventions augmented us with a team of front- and backend developers for both platforms. 

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

The TULIPA app, which is available in the App and Google Play stores, speaks for itself. 

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow was great and the team flexible. We followed a scrum methodology using tools like Jira and Slack.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They take ownership of the project and responsibility for their work. They are not just developers; they think for themselves, challenge ideas, and offer valuable suggestions. 

Are there any areas for improvement?

I would like to see a broader range of tech stacks and options.