Ethervision

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm in the marketing department at Downunder Horsemanship, a horsemanship education company that teaches people how to work with their horses.

What challenge were you trying to address with Ethervision?

We had an idea to turn our training kits into a mobile application available to the public. We’d started working with another company but it wasn't going well.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Ethervision looked at the existing code the other company had done, but it wasn't very good. They decided the best course of action would be to start over from scratch. They developed the app for both iOS and Android. People can watch videos on the app and read our informational booklets. They proposed incorporating our membership club into the app, and they've started researching how to get it on Apple TV and Roku. They also built two websites for us, and do all the ongoing maintenance for our suite of seven websites.

What is the team composition?

We work directly with Aaron (Lead Developer, Ethervision).

How did you come to work with Ethervision?

They actually reached out to us; Aaron is a follower of our horsemanship program.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve probably spent close to $300,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2016 and the engagement is ongoing.

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

Their idea to incorporate the membership club into the app was really great. The number of new members in the club has drastically increased since the app’s launch. They helped us take a simple idea, which likely wouldn't have gotten a lot of traction, and turned it into something that’s become the hub of our company.

How did Ethervision perform from a project management standpoint?

Ethervision has been awesome from start to finish. Aaron is our point man. We tell him what we want, and then he works with his team to figure out the steps to make it happen. He was in contact with me several times a day, every day, for the year it took to build the app. He immediately responds any time we have a problem. He’ll even contact our customers for us if there’s an issue that we can't handle directly. He’s a problem solver.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Other companies we've worked with have been awful. They either promise things that they don't deliver, or they don't offer support once you get the product. Ethervision’s been completely focused on customer service from day one, and their results speak for themselves. When we launched the app, there were very little if any bugs. They did a lot of user testing to make sure everything runs smoothly. They’re also very fast at fixing any bugs that have been found. It's been amazing to work with them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I honestly can't think of anything. I love how they communicate with us.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CFO of VistaNational Insurance Group, which is an insurance brokerage company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Ethervision?

We’re a customer service driven company and we wanted to upgrade our concierge service. Right now, any claims of our concierge service are done through email, fax, and phone. We wanted to make it simpler for our clients that have mobile devices to be able to submit their claims easily by logging into an app and submitting a couple of pages of bills that they’re having issues with, whether it’s medical or dental.

What was the scope of their involvement?

This was the first time we had ever done an app, and Ethervision was really good at guiding us through the process. They provided a lot of information that made us more comfortable in using them to build the app.

We wanted to make the app simple so that clients could be able to submit their claims easily. The client can now log in and submits a picture of the claim with a brief description of the issue they’re having.

Ethervision works with our marketing firm to provide help there as well. The app is built for both iOS and Android devices. They did the backend development and gave us a design of what the app would look like. We sent it to our marketing firm and they enhanced it. They also helped us get the app launched, and did training with our entire staff.

My main point of contact was Randall, and he managed the people from Ethervision.

How did you come to work with Ethervision?

We asked for referrals from a number of our other vendors, and our IT vendor recommended them. We interviewed three companies and chose Ethervision. We’re new in the app development world and they were able to explain the process to us in laymen’s terms.

How much have you invested with Ethervision?

We spent over $50,000 for the app.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in August 2016, and the app was launched in May 2017. They continue to provide maintenance on a monthly basis.

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

We pushed the app out to our 250 clients that have a total of 20,000 employees. So far, the feedback has been great. We’ve gotten a lot of submissions, and the app has been working well. This is not a mass market app because it’s a very niche market. The app is focused on claim issues, so if you don’t have a claim issue, you’re not going to download it.

Ethervision built a web panel for us so we know when a claim is submitted, where it is in the process, and when it’s completed. Before it was a paper process and now it’s automated, which makes it very easy to visualize. Overall, the whole process for submitting claims is much better.

How did Ethervision perform from a project management standpoint?

During the whole process, they did the wireframes and gave us a timeline for when things would be done. They’ve been great in meeting deadlines and we mostly communicated through email and phone with Randall.

What did you find most impressive about Ethervision?

Their guidance every step of the way and explaining everything in laymen’s terms was key for us.

Are there any areas Ethervision could improve?

No. They did a great job.

Please describe your organization.

I used to work for a global manufacturing company making products that primarily play in the transfer point space, such as transferring products primarily via belts like in coal mines.

What is your position?

I was the lead IT architect director.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Ethervision?

We had contracted another firm to write a web-based, as well as iOS and Android app, to collect data about our customers, products, our competitors' products, and how they actually perform in the field. We ran into some problems with the vendor being able to deliver that last mile piece and get it out the door and running. We went to Ethervision to help get it back on track and figure out how we could actually build a deliverable product that actually did all the things we wanted it to do.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

At the beginning, they basically gave us some consulting to review what we had to understand how it worked, what worked, give us some opinions on whether it was good code, bad code, and then provide us some recommendations from there. They then helped us figure out how to take that code, recompile it, and get the server running on Amazon Web Services so that we could protect ourselves from our previous partner as things were falling apart. We wanted to make sure we had a safe landing where we could still run the application, collect the data, and have control without worrying about being held hostage to the previous vendor having to fix something.

How did you come to work with Ethervision?

I did some research, went back to some of the companies that I'd researched the first time and hadn't chosen to partner with, plus did some looking around. I'm pretty sure Clutch and a couple other sites rated Ethervision fairly well and they were in the Chicago area. We thought that having a local firm, or relatively local, might not be a bad idea either. Then we made some calls, and they were the quickest to respond. Pretty much while on the phone, we were debugging the problems with no contracts in place and no plan to bill us. They quickly asked for the code, recompiled it, and within maybe two days, they had a really good assessment of the code and what it looked like. I would say in less than a week, they basically had it up and running on the server. Through that transition, we were still trying to talk to a few other agencies just to figure it out, but quickly established that the Ethervision team was very responsive, very customer-focused, and clearly knew what they're doing. All those were pretty good things to have, given where we were stuck.

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

That whole consulting exercise I explained was maybe $5,000 to $10,000. They were doing this as inexpensively as they could because we were still just trying to make sure that we had an insurance policy against the previous company, so that we could still control our app and run our app.

How did Ethervision perform from a project management standpoint?

Aaron Basil [Lead Developer, Ethervision] was so quick to respond and eager to come up with a plan that worked for us. They weren't worried about the contract and all the details before they got moving. They were more worried about how they could make sure that we were comfortable, knew what was going on, and were protected. That was pretty impressive, especially after coming from a consulting firm that required everything to be paid up front beforehand. Ethervision is much more nimble than most consulting development firms that I've worked with before.

What distinguishes Ethervision from other providers?

Ethervision is one of the most responsive firms I've ever worked with in the way of getting things done. I expected it to take a month to do the stuff they did in a week.

Is there anything Ethervision could have improved or done differently?

No, I don't think so.

Please describe your organization.

The company is called My Ex-Pat Network Limited. We are a Hong Kong-based company, and we provide personal VPN services to ex-pats, typically Americans, Brits, Canadians, or Australians.

What is your position?

I am a co-owner of the company.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Ethervision?

Our service, the personal VPN service, is an internet-based service. We usually deliver the service via a piece of software, so we wanted to create an app.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

For our app, we wanted it to be available for the iOS and Android platforms. We did all of this with Ethervision.

How did you come to work with Ethervision?

I’m actually based in Chicago, and I wanted to find a provider that was near me. The fact that Ethervision is in Chicago was a factor. I looked at other clients of Ethervision and there were a few companies out there that had a similar Software as a Service [SaaS] kind of model. I had already worked with another company. In fact, this was our third attempt to get an app launched.

In the first attempt, we couldn’t get approved by Apple. The second attempt, the company that I was working with fell by the wayside; they didn’t seem too interested in helping us. They were a Chicago-based app developer as well. Ethervision was the third company that we attempted to work with. I must admit, when I started with Ethervision, my expectation was very low at that point.

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

It was $10,000 to $50,000, closer to $50,000.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

From my point of view, I'm very happy with the app. We have quite a lot of competitors in this space, and I think many of our competitors miss the point when they develop an app, and that is when people buy personal VPN services, that’s what they want. They want a strong VPN connection, which gives them security, privacy, and gets them around IP restrictions if they happen to be outside of their home country. The requirements are fairly straightforward, and most of our competitors tend to put too many bells and whistles on their apps. Our app is very simple. It looks great, it works well, and we’ve had very good feedback. We’ve had very good reviews on the App Store and Google Play.

What distinguishes Ethervision from other providers?

One thing is that the Ethervision team is knowledgeable and they're experienced. They have a good understanding of what will get approved with Apple, and believe me, getting Apple to approve an app is a challenge in itself. From my point of view, that was the main thing. Android doesn’t have the same approval process, it’s easier. For Apple, it’s really an art, not a science to try to get them to approve an app. Ethervision got our app approved for us and got it approved on the second attempt; it was rejected the first time. We made some minor adjustments, and it was approved. That, for me is the piece that is most important, their understanding of what Apple will and will not approve.

Is there anything Ethervision could have improved or done differently?

Like any of these kinds of projects, I think Ethervision dragged it on a little bit. I’m not saying that’s their entire fault; that’s partly our fault. I think they probably had other priorities as well, but I think a bit more focus on staying on top of the project would be my main feedback.

Please describe your organization.

I work for Aon Hewitt. We have a range of products spanning human resources management, insurance management, and health services management. 

What is your position?

I work for a team called spending accounts. I'm the lead product developer for the team. My main responsibilities include working on new products – an example would be introducing enhancements to our existing mobile app.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Ethervision?

Every year I meet with the leaders across the company and try to understand our business problems and what areas we are lagging behind in. What I learned was that our mobile app had limited features, and we needed to make updates.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

Originally, it was native iOS app development but, as the partnership has extended, some Android app development was included. Our Android app was done internally, but Ethervision previously developed the iOS version. We were very impressed and happy with what they previously delivered. We wanted to continue to extend our partnership simply because we knew quality and timeliness would be a guarantee with Ethervision. We've recently had their help to add new features to our Android app.

How did you come to work with Ethervision?

Originally, we conducted an RFP [request for proposal] process. When we looked at all the companies in the market, it was an obvious decision to go with them because they were the best out of the lot.

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

Including the most recent Android development, our partnership was in the range of $250,000 to $1 million.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

There was a challenge in the sense that there were some delays from another vendor. This forced us to figure out how we could still deliver the project even though the timeline was compressed. Ethervision stepped up, and they had the developers work extra, even on the weekends, I believe. They were able to put in the extra effort and still guarantee the quality that I was looking for. Even though it was a compressed timeline there has not been a single issue reported since the updated app went live in August 2015.

What distinguishes Ethervision from other providers?

As a stakeholder, I like visibility. I don't like surprises. I like promptness. Randall Cross [president at Ethervision] and his team are very prompt and responsive. We always received a response within 24 hours. They were very transparent with the project's progress. If they had any concerns, they brought them to my attention. When they would come with concerns, they also made sure to have suggested solutions. Their preemptive nature made it easier to make decisions. They gave us options. It was great not to have to think from scratch. They were very transparent.

Is there anything Ethervision could have improved or done differently?

The experience with Ethervision was good. I'm finding it difficult to find a scenario or something that happened that they could have done differently.

Please describe your organization.

We are a safety consulting and certification company. We test products to ensure they meet standards for safety.

What is your position?

I'm a project manager.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Ethervision?

We needed to find a way to explain requirements to new customers better.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

Ethervision created iOS and Android smartphone and tablet applications for us. They also helped to create illustrations based on the safety requirements and our safety standards. 

How did you come to work with Ethervision?

We had an open bidding process for quite a few different companies. The selection was made on price, examples of previous work, and demonstrating an understanding of what we were trying to get done.

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

The total project was completed for less than $100,000.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Internally, we were very happy with outcome and very impressed with the results. We were able to get this done in such a short period of time. 

What distinguishes Ethervision from other providers?

Ethervision had a great project management format to communicate feedback back and forth. Ethervision was quick to respond. They had specific personnel for specific jobs. It made it easy to know whom things should go to. There were defined roles so it was easy to communicate.

Is there anything Ethervision could have improved or done differently?

I would have liked to have had closer direct contact with some of the development team. I was in touch with the lead developer, but I think it would have been nice for us to be in contact with Ethervision's illustrator. I think it added a couple hours of communication by going through a point person.

Please describe your organization.

We are Midwest Tankermen Inc. We load and unload chemical barges on the Illinois waterways, Lake Michigan, and the upper Mississippi River. We have approximately 30 employees.

What is your position?

I'm vice president of operations.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Ethervision?

We had a dilemma with delivering real-time information to our guys in the field that were interacting with other companies. We started by issuing each field agent a tablet, but we needed to have real-time information sent digitally. 

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

Ethervision helped us develop an Android tablet application that would help deliver real-time information to our guys in the field.

How did you come to work with Ethervision?

Ethervision was recommended to me. I got with their CEO, Randall Cross, and he was very knowledgeable in what we wanted to accomplish. I felt like we would work well together, so that's why we went with them.

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

The project was in the $10,000 to $50,000 range.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

It's been a good partnership. We have a few older personnel. They're having a harder time with the whole "going digital" aspect but, other than that, it's been very good. The information is now not only coming in on a real-time basis, it's actually legible. Our guys used to hand write everything and fax it in. Now, everything's digital. We're going to tie that in with our database at some point down the line.

What distinguishes Ethervision from other providers?

Their CEO was the only guy I talked to. He was prompt at getting back to me. When you're developing an app, it doesn't always go right the first time. After we did some field testing, Ethervision got right on whatever issues we needed fixed.

Is there anything Ethervision could have improved or done differently?

I don't think so. We were provided great service by Ethervision. The app turned out really well. We look forward to expanding on what we've got. We've talked about getting an Apple version of our app. 

Please describe your organization.

We are Zeta Manufacturing Company. We are a contract engineering company and design products for our clients.

What is your position?

I'm a project engineer.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Ethervision?

We've started this project two and a half years ago. We invented, designed, and manufactured our own product. It's called the Grip and Shoot. It's a Bluetooth handle for phones. Our mobile devices are becoming our cameras more, but they're awkward to hold, so we developed an electronic grip that can be used for stability. It is controlled remotely. We needed software to work with the product, but we're engineers, not software developers.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

We reached out to Ethervision to help us design an iOS app that would integrate with the iPhone camera for our product. 

How did you come to work with Ethervision?

We're in the Chicago area, so we did a Google search for Chicago-based app developers. I think there were three or four and we reached out to all of them. Ethervision's prices were very competitive. I believe they were on the lower end, and they were very responsive. We do rapid prototype and design manufacturing, so we wanted a response quickly. We submitted a ticket, they called us that day, and we were working with them in a week. 

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

The project is in the range of $10,000 to $50,000.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Ethervision helped us write our original app, which was about two years ago. We were a startup company then. When we wanted to make some updates to the app, we figured that if we outsourced the work to companies overseas, it would be cheaper, so we did that. It was such a headache. The process took three times longer than promised. The language barrier was rotten and, within a year, we went back to Ethervision. We were trying to save money, and it bit us from behind. Our renewed partnership with Ethervision has been a great experience overall.

What distinguishes Ethervision from other providers?

Ethervision's ability to explain the project status. I'm an engineer so I think I'm technologically savvy, but the coding language was very hard to understand. Ethervision has a very good way of explaining it in layman's terms to me. I want to stress their promptness, too – answering emails right away, giving us phone calls. Speed is a very important part of this industry. They are able to move fast.

Is there anything Ethervision could have improved or done differently?

I have nothing bad to say.

Please describe your organization.

We are a sporting goods distributer and manufacturer based out of Northbrook, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. We have 11 offices in three countries, and our core business is servicing large mass merchant type sporting goods retailers. Our largest customer is Wal-Mart. We work with pretty much everybody that sells sporting goods in North America.

What is your position?

I am the chief technology officer of the company.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Ethervision?

With regard to Ethervision and how they have helped us, we have a field service force of about 200 individuals in the United States and Canada, they go into a Wal-Mart and other customers' stores, and they'll work within the store with a handheld technology package. We've been doing that since the '80s. Our company has always tried to invest in technology and make sure it's a core part of our business offerings.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

Ethervision helped us deploy a state-of-the-art iPad application. The previous generation device was a Motorola or sort of a ruggedized Blackberry. We have deployed 200 iPads out into our field, with a Bluetooth scanning wedge because our field team scans a lot of barcodes. The native camera within the iPad is not quite up to the task of the volume that we need, so we added a Bluetooth wedge.

Ethervision developed a complete package for us that we load through our Apple Enterprise account. The app allows our field team to do all of their job functions as well as we added some new feature sets because of the capabilities of the iPad, leveraging all the advantages of having that larger screen size and the iPad native technology to it. Ethervision did an outstanding job of leveraging the native technology on the iPad into the custom app that they developed for us.

This is the fourth application we've had Ethervision develop for us. They've previously done other applications related to our field service including an iPhone and Android application. They have also developed an application for our business-to-business web store.

How did you come to work with Ethervision?

In the initial process, we interviewed Ethervision and two other firms here locally in Chicago. There were two small companies, one like Ethervision. When I say small, Ethervision is a 10-person or so shop. Then, we looked at a larger company with more than 100 associates. I felt that Ethervision was incredibly credible. Ethervision published one of the first applications out in the store back in 2007.

I just felt that Ethervision's experience and longevity in the app business, and added a lot of credibility to what they were talking about. They were also very current with the latest trends in app development, in terms of graphical design, how things should look as well as leveraging the native technology sets on each device. I thought Ethervision had a real one up on the other shops.

Being a small firm, we find that the joint application development sessions with Ethervision are outstanding. I can get my developers and my team on the phone with them, and there's no long forms to fill out. Ethervision being a smaller, more nimble organization allows us to address changes to the scope of a project quickly.

When we launched the application, if we had a bug that came up in testing, they were all over it. They have a very rapid response time to a break or fix needed to the application. They're very current and very cutting edge as to the latest development and design practices.

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

We've completed a couple projects with Ethervision, this most recent project was a $200,000-plus project.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We're now capturing three times the amount of images that we were because of the quality of the camera and the ability of our field to tag the images for easy retrieval.

Anecdotally, our uptime and our support has been very minimal for a new rollout. Previously when we rolled out other units, we'd have a lot of, "How do I do downloads? How do I do this type of thing?" It's been very low touch on the Ethervision app deployment. I attribute that a lot to the ease of use of the application that Ethervision developed as well as the stability of the iPad platform. Very low touch, it's definitely hitting the business points in terms of what we wanted to achieve in terms of volume and velocity. We're very pleased with the application and the impact it's having on the business so far.

What distinguishes Ethervision from other providers?

Ethervision gets business. Their team leads, Randy Cross and Aaron Basil, are very understanding of what their clients are trying to achieve, not just for me, but I know for their other customers as well. They understand the business side of things and what we're trying to achieve as goals, and when you have a partner like that, it makes it a lot easier to achieve your goals.

Is there anything Ethervision could have improved or done differently?

My general heads up, as any chief technology officer would say, is make sure you have a well-defined scope going into a project, where both parties have documented and agreed to what the scope is. When you use a third party like Ethervision, that's very important, so you can all stay on the same page. It's almost like a contract between two individuals of what they're going to do and what we're going to do on our side. Once you can agree to that and have a clearly documented scope, it makes the whole project rollout a lot easier.

Please describe your organization.

We are an application startup. Our application is game and can be found on the iOS platform.

What is your position?

I am the founder and inventor of the game.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Ethervision?

We were trying to find a developer to turn our vision into an actual application. I wanted to stick with someone local to Chicago. I researched several development companies and, in that research, I found Ethervision and a few other companies. After speaking with a few of them, we chose to go with Ethervision to help us scope out our project and go live in the App Store. 

How did you come to work with Ethervision?

Prior to choosing which development company we were going to use, we had an interview process and the interview that we had with Ethervision went extremely well. We liked their ideas, their focus, and the fact that they had a lot of passion for the game that we wanted to create. We didn't see that passion from any other team.

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

Our gaming application cost right around $50,000.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We've had about 5,000 downloads, but at this point we've done zero marketing. It's all been word of mouth. We have a retention rate of around 28 percent. We're not making any money on the application since it's a free application. 

What distinguishes Ethervision from other providers?

Communication with Ethervision has been fantastic. I've worked with several vendors in other areas of my professional career and Ethervision has been one of my favorites to work with because of the communication. That's key. We were able to meet face to face many times. They have many good connections locally as well. They have a large network and we were able connect with a couple people from Apple to give us some good feedback, especially around link building and marketing the app through the Apple App Store which I thought was pretty great. I feel like Ethervision delivered on all aspects of what they promised to build. It came out nicely.

Is there anything Ethervision could have improved or done differently?

They came up with a smart idea on how to generate users to the game and keep users intrigued in future games. It would take a lot of effort on their side to build this specific feature into the application, they chose not to but, for this, they discounted the total fee that they were charging. We came to the agreement that it was best to leave that feature out for the time being. That was the only issue we had.