Dision

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

LittleLives makes preschool administration software to help manage day-to-day tasks and track child development. We’ve recently moved into working with parents through mobile apps. I’m the technical lead.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Dision?

We developed an iOS version of our mobile app for parents early on, but as we moved into Malaysia, we realized we needed an Android version as well. That’s where the need came in. We were looking specifically for a team of Android developers because we didn’t have any in-house.  

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Android app for parents is the biggest project so far, but they are also helping us maintain our existing Android app —  that one helps schools take attendance for all the kids. They’ve worked on one more app that we use for infant care management. All of the apps have been Android based.

One of the most unique features they worked on is the push notifications. The app is able to send out notifications to parents when the school completes tasks that are meaningful to them. For example, when a child arrives at school, they take a photo, and the application pushes out this photo to parents in real time. The parents have been hugely appreciative of that.

How did you come to work with Dision?

We found them on Upwork. Initially, we were looking to find an individual developer and then we met Yavor [Yordanov], the founder of Dision. He spoke about how his team was fairly new and quite small at the time. We weren’t looking to work with a big company, and he had a small outfit with two other developers. He assured me that he’s not a project manager or an outsourcing manager, but that he himself was a developer, so I was quite impressed. 

We were able to get together a small technical team in a short period of time. At the time, we needed development to move quickly. Technically speaking, Dision also impressed me with some of the ideas they had. We already had our backend laid out and were pretty set on how we’d get mobile to consume our APIs, but they also had suggestions that made them stand out.

How much have you invested with them?

Close to $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in December 2016 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have roughly 700 preschools in Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam using our family of products at the moment. That totals about 100,000 users, counting all the parents and teachers. The Android app used by parents has about 1,500 weekly active users. It’s still growing because we only released it to a few pilot schools earlier this year. 

Regarding the attendance taking app, it’s not exactly clear how many users there are because it’s a communal app used by the whole school. However, we do count each time a user takes an attendance, and that happens 20,000 times a day.

How did Dision perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed fairly well and they always deliver on time. They’re quite particular about the organization of their work and having tasks concisely handed to them.  They like to get their specifications clearly so the project can be done as soon as possible — it’s all well organized.

They’ve taken the time to integrate themselves well with our team. Initially, they had some ideas on how they wanted project management to go. We were discussing how we can make our processes work together. Eventually, they were more keen to see how they could integrate some of our processes and then things could get going a lot faster. I liked how they are very process driven as well. They see the value in getting our development processes to work together.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They showed us how well Android development can go, especially because we have previously struggled with other teams. I like how well organized they are. They are constantly pushing us to get ourselves even more organized and to get into new development practices. At the same time, they are quite open to trying out new things as well. When we incorporated some changes to our development process, they were more than happy to integrate those into their working style, too.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I had no big issues with them. Maybe communication wise, since they’re from Bulgaria, there are some cultural differences between them and us all the way in Asia. There were times where I wasn’t sure what their thoughts were on a particular issue. I couldn’t tell whether Yavor was upset about something or not. That’s the issue with working remotely, however, and I can’t fault them for that.

Do you have any recommendations for someone who is considering hiring this crew?

The team at Dision like working on challenging stuff. They expect that the work delivered to them is fairly well organized and prioritized, as opposed to just throwing them a loosely designed spec. They love challenges, so if you have work that’s not challenging enough for them, they might turn it down.