Infinum

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of product for Repsly. We’re a software company that provides a retail execution platform. Retail execution is essentially merchandizing and field sales. Large food and consume products brands use us when they send their teams into retail stores to merchandize their products. We’re the platform that they run on — a mobile app and a web app that they use to execute these field programs. We have about 800 customers around the world in 80 different countries using our product.

What challenge were you trying to address with Infinum?

We were looking for a partner to run our UX design process and wanted someone that was experienced working with our kind of applications.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Infinum offers many design services, but we’re a product company, so they’re providing us with access to UX design leaders and designers to join our team and build our product.
We’re going through a design update for our web application, and they led the whole workshop and kickoff of that project. They’ve been working with us directly on the design and implementation for a year now.
The project started with rethinking the product. We last did a redesign 4–5 years ago, and the website was great for the time, but our business transformed, and we went from serving very small customers with 5–10 users to large, global teams with hundreds or even thousands of people in the field. That level of business application requires a different UX, and its users expect different things out of their applications. Infinum’s team led the process of rethinking our application in light of our larger corporate clients.
Specifically, they helped us prioritize our personas and home in on who we were designing for. Then, they helped us workshop how we prioritize the roadmap on design, and worked with us through the design process, from concept to wireframe to actual UX design. They also interacted directly with our development teams to implement and deploy.
In this case, they designed for iOS and web, using a lot of core support technology. They had a project management system, Productive, that we found to be very useful. They work a lot with some good design collaboration tools. For example, we’re working with both Figma and Miro — we’re doing workshops on these platforms. We can whiteboard designs and concepts and work through different exercises to extract requirements and priorities, and then share them with the developers.

What was the team composition?

We’ve worked with 5–6 people at Infinum over the years, including project managers, senior designers, mobile designers, web designers, etc.

How did you come to work with Infinum?

We connected with Infinum, because we were founded in Zagreb, which is where they’re located. They had the capacity to bring multiple different skill sets into the UX design process, and they were located close to our development team, which is also in Zagreb. They didn’t just have the technical skills of mobile and web apps, but they knew how to run the design process. We interviewed multiple firms and felt that Infinum was the right choice for us.

We had a set of objectives in mind and set that up against potential firms in the region. We interviewed each company for their proposal, and Infinum stood out in several ways. First, this is the type of project they normally do. They have a number of other clients that look like us. Additionally, the type of people they hire suited us. They have teams of designers that collaborate with each other, so we weren’t just getting the people on our team, but we were also going to benefit from the whole company. That was a big differentiator.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent less than $200,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since January 2020.

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

We’re about to launch our new UX, and that’s where the proof will come into play. We’re instrumenting our system to detect usability patterns with the new designs, and once I have those statistics, we’ll be able to compare user behavior between the new system and the old one.

How did Infinum perform from a project management standpoint?

They use a project management tool called Productive, which has been super helpful. We use it as a scrum system — there is a backlog and then things that are active in the current sprint. They also use it for their billing system.

The most important thing was the cadence Infinum set up with us on weekly synchronization with me. This lets me know what’s happening on the ground level of each project. We meet weekly to do a recap and some reprioritization on the plan. They’re very agile and able to respond to changing needs.

What did you find most impressive about them?

First, speaking as a software company, Infinum understands the software business, whereas other providers we talked to had marketing-type design skills. Infinum knows how to make products. Second, their breadth of experience stands out. They have a great team of in-house designers. We don’t just have one designer. Third, they’re a great cultural fit with us. Because we’re embedding them with our team, they understand agile systems and they share our values in terms of creating greater customer experiences and adopting best practices. The transition to start working with them was very smooth.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing immediately comes to mind. We hired them specifically because they’re based in Zagreb, like our development office. This was intentional, as we wanted them to be in the same time zone as the team doing the implementation work. Selfishly, I’d love to have more time overlap to spend with them, but because they’re six hours ahead of me, there’s no way for me to be more available to them. That’s not their fault, however.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Look to align with them on your project and their experience. Can they show you examples that relate to your work? Ask them how they’ll find out what your design objectives are. Learn about their process to extract user requirements and design requirements. They did a great job of articulating their process to us.

Additionally, look for a cultural fit between how you and they think about products. Early on, we had them do an evaluation about what they thought about our initial product. They found all the items we’d highlighted to address, in addition to a bunch of other issues that totally made sense.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior digital business manager at Messe München, a trade fair company. I’m in charge of developing new digital products for trade fairs.

What challenge were you trying to address with Infinum?

We hired Infinum to develop a trade fair app for the business.

What was the scope of their involvement?

At the start, we had a concept and rough wireframes. Their team began with developing and designing the wireframes. It is a native application for iOS and Android. The key features are focused on two areas.

First, there is a service area that includes all of the details a fair visitor would need. This consists of a hall plan, exhibitor list, events area, and other necessary information. The second component involves networking. There is a participant directory where users can see who is registered and if they can send messages to them. The app has several different communication channels, where groups can have discussions.

What is the team composition?

We work with a project manager, designer, development team, and a QA tester.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement with Infinum started in January 2018.

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

We’ve had a few UX tests and customer feedback.

How did Infinum perform from a project management standpoint?

While there were a few issues in the beginning, their project management is great. We plan everything two-week sprints, which is how we track development.

What did you find most impressive about them?

When we work together, their team is very motivated. We get the feeling that they want to deliver excellent code and prepare everything correctly. Infinum doesn’t make their client’s projects feel like one in a thousand. Their team wants to be included in our thoughts and concepts, freely giving and discussing their opinion. I think this has been the main difference with them compared to other providers.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Sometimes it’s difficult for them to get detailed estimates when it comes to new features. We now understand that they need a lot of information for the estimates. It would be great to have rough estimates at an earlier stage.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

During the project, have two or three calls each week with the project manager. Each month, we discuss the budget to ensure no surprises. It’s also helpful to have workshops with their team. We can easily meet face to face when we’re in Zagreb or when they’re in Munich. It’s worth it to travel because it’s useful to discuss and think about new features with their team. I’d advise having at least one or two workshops at the start because it’s great to have everyone sitting at one table.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a small startup focused on developing immunotherapy for cancer.

What challenge were you trying to address with Infinum?

We needed the help of a company that could redo our site completely. Prior to hiring a web development company, we were using Wix. There were some limitations with what we could do with our website on our own, and the platform needed to be faster. We also wanted to create different versions of our site for our international work.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The project is rather large. Our existing website was about 10 pages, but they had to completely redo it from scratch. Initially, the project started with three phases, involving the US, Polish, Israeli, and Turkish websites. During each phase, we would launch new pages to our site. They’ve held our hands and provide direction through the process. We didn’t have an IT department or a brand guide for them to follow, so they created branding elements for us. That included the color scheme and font kit. 

After creating the website, they even helped with onboarding. We’re now using WordPress, so they trained me on the platform so I can maintain the site as we move forward. They also did DNS management, which wasn’t initially in our quote. They asked if we needed help there, and the answer was yes. 

What is the team composition?

Our project manager was the main point of contact, but I had weekly calls with him and the entire design and development team. It was interactive that way. The development team came to me directly with questions, but I mostly spoke with the project manager. 

How did you come to work with Infinum?

We did a lot of Google searching and found several vendor options. In their proposal to us, they were very thorough in identifying our business problems and defining what they thought we needed. They also answered plenty of questions about what technologies would be used and what platforms we would have to implement to make the process work.   

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working with them since August 2020.

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

The website is functioning much faster, so they’ve met all the needs we were hoping to achieve so far.  

How did Infinum perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re easy to work with and communicate great. They never left out a single detail in our updates. Using Productive, I can monitor their progress. They also send detailed invoices and updates. We’ve only missed one deadline, and it was for a justifiable reason.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their communication skills were amazing, which helped us through the process. They track their progress effectively as well. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing comes to mind.  

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Our biggest issue was not having content prepped for them on our end. Make sure you provide them realistic deadlines to accommodate any potential delays.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Na Zvezi is a Slovenian company developing an operations management solution for online gaming. We have developed several products using our proprietary platform, all related to the sports betting and online casinos market. They are mainly intended for the European market. I am the CEO of the company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Infinum?

We needed to develop and application. Infinum is our supplier for the mobile application part of our platform.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We provided our APIs to Infinum, both for our platform and for our AMS [Account Management System]. Infinum used our documentation and development environments in order to build an Android and iOS sports betting application.

We did a lot of research analyzing our competition and developed the concept behind the application together with Infinum. Infinum used their experience to help us build a very good product.

How did you come to work with Infinum?

We found their company through a Google search. Infinum happened to be located in one of our neighbor countries, Croatia. We had several offers on the table, and after having very detailed interviews with each provider and their team, we decided to choose Infinum.

How much have you invested with Infinum?

Our budget for the mobile applications was around €600,000 [$630,000]. Infinum's hourly rates are between €70 and €100 [$73–$105] per hour, per developer. This is an idea of how much time and effort was put into developing our applications.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Infinum almost six months ago. We have an ongoing contract for maintenance and upgrades. We work through a retainer fee, as well as time and materials for anything which extends beyond our normal agreement.

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

We think that, at the moment, there is no better product on the market than ours, for this area.

Infinum adapted to our way of working, which was an important factor for us. We didn't know the company and didn't do a lot of research around it. The development was much more complex than anticipated. We estimated that we'd be spending around €200,000 for the apps, but Infinum came up with many new ideas which we adopted. I am thankful to Infinum for this, as it would have been possible to develop our product for 30% of our cost, but not with the same level of quality and at the same speed. Speed was crucial for us, since we developed a sophisticated product in a short time, from scratch.

How did Infinum perform from a project management standpoint?

We decided to put project management in Infinum's hands. The timeframes we agreed upon contractually came with penalties if Infinum did not meet our deadline. Infinum finished the work without any issues. Infinum has a huge team, and they were able to use additional resources in order to speed up the project if needed.

What did you find most impressive about Infinum?

I appreciated the level of optimization and quality assurance provided by Infinum. Infinum optimized our product for less processing and power consumption and had excellent quality assurance protocols in place. We don't have the in-house capacity for testing our product, so we expected this from Infinum since day one. Infinum took the task very seriously.

Are there any areas Infinum could improve?

We haven't touched very deeply yet on the marketing features which are to be implemented in the apps, so I can't comment in that area. Still, based on the good experience I've had with Infinum until now, I can assume that the development of these features will run well. We needed to have a firm grounding before building additional features, but we will enter a new era with Infinum.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Virtual Post Mail is a service which scans people's mail, allowing them to receive it through the cloud. I am the CEO of the company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Infinum?

We were looking to revamp our entire mail management site.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Infinum designed our platform from initial user functionality prototyping and sketching. We were planning to develop the site using our own programmers but decided to give Infinum a try for the frontend. We handled the backend ourselves.

How did you come to work with Infinum?

We came in contact with one of Infinum's designers via Dribble. Coincidentally, they happened to be a customer of ours.

How much have you invested with Infinum?

The cost of our project with Infinum was between $50,000 and $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Infinum in January 2016. Most of the development was finished in October. We plan to use Infinum again in the first quarter of 2017 for redesigning our website.

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

Infinum's design was good, but it was also challenging. I'm a software engineer myself, which made presenting my vision more difficult. Things were squared away, and the final product quality was good. Infinum also did a good job development-wise. Because I have experience on the software side, managing that portion of the work was much easier.

How did Infinum perform from a project management standpoint?

Infinum could improve in this regard. The project manager who was assigned to us was fairly new and didn't follow up in the manner promised to us. I've needed to talk to one of the senior people from Infinum, who squared away most of my issues.

What did you find most impressive about Infinum?

I've appreciated the fact that Infinum's senior designer was actively involved in our project. Most agencies have a senior designer who talks to clients but isn't the one actually doing the work. The same thing happens on the software side, which is why I've tended to stay away from agencies. Infinum has been good at actually assigning the people who initially talked to me for the actual development of the project, and not passing the work down to junior developers.

Are there any areas Infinum could improve?

Outside of the project management issue I've mentioned, I can't think of anything. The development workflow was great, and Infinum did a good job of accommodating me. For a Croatian company, the team speaks English very well.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of ProxyPics, a new startup mobile app that provides real-time multimedia images of anything you can drop onto maps.

What challenge were you trying to address with Infinum?

We needed help building our mobile iOS and Android app.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Infinum built native Android and iOS mobile apps. I gave them an idea of what I wanted and they took it from the idea stage, developed the wireframe, and built it out. Every week, we would go over project progress and details, I would give them input, and they would continue to develop while implementing my feedback.

The final product enables users to sign in and request real-time images from people near a location. That requires communication between devices, notifications, location settings, and camera access.

What is the team composition?

The majority of the time, I worked with our project manager. The team also included the owner and a backend developer.

How did you come to work with Infinum?

A friend of mine that owns a tech company recommended them to me. We looked at a few other companies, but Infinum seemed to really have everything together.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent a little over $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in October 2017, and while the app is active and live, we are continuing to make updates.

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

The app is easy to navigate and user-friendly, which was one of our main focuses in building the app. Most of the responses we’ve gotten from users are that—from the first time they open the app—it’s self-explanatory and easy to follow.

How did Infinum perform from a project management standpoint?

They always met the established due dates. We would have weekly calls with the project manager, and daily communication over Slack or email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were always on time, which has never seemed to happen in app development projects for colleagues or myself. They were accommodating whenever we needed to make last minute changes. They were always willing to work with us.

They also work very quickly, which I think was in part because we worked through a project manager. We had tried to work directly with a developer before, but with a project manager, Infinum was able to easily translate our needs into developer terms.

Are there any areas they could improve?

This was our first time building an app, so to my knowledge they did everything the way they should have. I have no complaints.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you don’t have much technical skill or knowledge, I definitely suggest working through a project manager because there can be a language disconnect when working directly with a programmer or developer. That was one of the biggest benefits of working with Infinum and it made a world of difference.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of software for a biotechnology company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Infinum?

We wanted to build an MVP of an Android app to support our system and reach our end clients.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We provided them with a set of requirements. Infinum continues to develop our Android platform using Kotlin.

What is the team composition?

We work with about five people from the Infinum team.

How did you come to work with Infinum?

I knew of the company and that their team was made up of good developers who produced high-quality work. I emailed them, and they provided assistance on short notice to help us get started.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership began in May 2020.

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

They provided a professional end case. When we raise complaints, they quickly respond and fix the issue. We enjoy working with them.

How did Infinum perform from a project management standpoint?

Infinum provides a project manager who works part-time and handles the financial aspects of the project such as billing. We have smooth cooperation.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Infinum has a good balance of different expertise within the company. They also assign senior developers to oversee less-experienced developers, which is a good thing.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing comes to mind.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I don’t have any specific advice.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a B2B [business-to-business] marketplace for the overstock industry. We are similar to eBay, with the exception that our customers are buying hundreds of thousands of pieces at a time. This is very much an offline market at the moment and involves emailing Excel files between partners. We're trying to transform it, and have brought Infinum in to help us build the marketplace from scratch.

I am the chief technology officer of the company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Infinum?

We had a legacy solution which had been built upon a third-party platform. It was an okay piece of auction technology but wasn't fitting for our business needs and where we wanted to scale to. We looked at building on top of an existing framework but came to the conclusion that building from scratch would align with our business better.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Infinum handled the writing of our backend, including database design, modeling, wire-framing and building out the JavaScript front-end. I participated in the design process.

How did you come to work with Infinum?

I got Infinum's name from a friend who had worked with them in the past. I flew to Croatia and met them in person, in order to better understand how we could work together. I contacted a number of other options, but Infinum struck me as someone who could help us figure out how to build what we wanted, without having to come up with a complete design spec. We knew what general direction we wanted to take, but I left the user interface design up to Infinum. They came up with some great suggestions for this.

How much have you invested with Infinum?

The cost of our project with Infinum has been above $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Infinum in early-March 2016. The first iteration was completed mid-July, and the development has continued since.

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

The developers from Infinum whom I've worked with have been some of the best and brightest I've seen. They came up with good solutions and business ideas which we hadn't considered but ended up implementing. I've had a very positive experience with Infinum.

What did you find most impressive about Infinum?

Infinum engineered things correctly while remaining proactive about making sure to create the right code, rather than finding shortcuts. Infinum asked many questions about our design, which we hadn't thought to specify, and erred on the correct side, without us having to request this. Some other developers I used in the past might take some shortcuts unless I specified otherwise.

Are there any areas Infinum could improve?

No software is ever developed as quickly as we'd like it to, but this is the nature of the field. I have no specific criticisms of Infinum. They've done a good job.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our department works for a government-owned Croatian postal bank. I am the deputy head of direct channels for the company. My main responsibilities include digital and mobile banking, and the contact center.

What challenge were you trying to address with Infinum?

Our bank was using an out-of-the-box mobile solution from another vendor, with only its colors customized for our institution. That software was outdated and the challenge was to make a new, modern banking app which could make a difference in the market and stand out.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Together with Infinum, we built a new banking app for Android and iOS. Infinum handled design and development, including an API for the app.

At the beginning of 2016, we added an account opening functionality to the app. Through a video call to our contact center, new customers could be introduced to the bank. This was a completely new service for the Croatian market.

How did you come to work with Infinum?

I first worked with Infinum in 2011, for another bank, developing a mobile application, but I wasn't working for my present organization when Infinum was brought in.

How much have you invested with Infinum?

The total cost of our project with Infinum was under $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We first approached Infinum one year ago, and finished the first version of our product at the end of 2015. The upgrade project began in early 2016 and was completed in May. It was a large project with a strict timeline, but with the help of Infinum, we managed to pull it off.

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

We currently have around 60,000 mobile banking users. We've received an award at the Weekend Media Festival one month ago, for the best banking app in Croatia. The app has made a big impact on the market. The Croatian Bank is more traditional, and other banks didn't expect that we could pull this off.

What did you find most impressive about Infinum?

I have been personally working with Infinum since 2011, and see them as more of a partner than a software development company. Infinum has given us suggestions on how we could create a better app and better user experience. Infinum's key strengths are the quality developers who have managed to deliver everything on time. Banks usually have different approaches, but Infinum brought in its experience in developing for other fields.

Are there any areas Infinum could improve?

Infinum could employ more designers, but they don't have any particular improvement points.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Hungry-For-More Enterprises was formed in late-2014 in order to develop Foodfaves, a picture-intensive food app aimed at foodies and anyone that gets hungry. It features a unique concept called a "Crave Quiz," where users search and swipe sequential images of food in order to determine what they're hungry for.

I am the president of the company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Infinum?

We knew from the beginning that our app required a complicated search algorithm, probably the biggest challenge we faced when choosing a software developer. The provider needed to understand our needs, be responsive to our financial hurdles in the startup space, while also delivering the right product. Because our product is heavily structured on social media, we needed a young group of social media-savvy developers.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Infinum developed an initial build of our product for iOS, and a full-featured website. The app will eventually be built for Android as well.

Our Crave Quiz concept works as a sort of Tinder for food, allowing people to swipe dishes right or left, based on whether or not there is a visual appeal. We envisioned this as the central piece of a minimum viable product but ended up achieving a much more robust, full-featured and functional product over the course of 18 months. We attribute this largely to Infinum's ability to understand our vision, and contribute to its design and functionality.

How did you come to work with Infinum?

We vetted Infinum from a field of developers both in the US and offshore. Infinum in particular, was recommended by our legal counsel, an international firm, on the basis of positive experiences between Infinum and their other clients.

How much have you invested with Infinum?

Infinum has logged close to 4,000 hours of development and design time over the course of 18 months, which is indicative of our project size. The scope grew over the course of development, becoming larger than we'd anticipated. 

What is the status of this engagement?

Development with Infinum began in February 2015. Our project has been completed and made ready-to-launch to the app store in September 2016.

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

We are very excited and confident with the quality of our first build.  As Foodfaves was just launched, it’s too early to measure traction. 

We've asked Infinum to achieve something unique and difficult, in terms of the actual search algorithm powering the Crave Quiz. Not only did they succeed in development, its “uniqueness” earned the co-founders a formal U.S. patent on the Search Algorithm itself.

How did Infinum perform from a project management standpoint?

Consistency was key. Where this was a team effort by over 25 developers & designers, Infinum's project manager, Luka Maric was our main contact through the entire project, responsible for understanding our needs, helping us fine-tune our vision, and ultimately getting it done.  

What did you find most impressive about Infinum?

One of the most positive things I can say about Infinum is that instead of working as a group of software coders who only responded in step with what we asked for, Infinum actually tried to understand what the client was setting out to do, and used their creative instincts in helping us achieve our goals, even when we sometimes didn’t know ourselves.

As a practicing physician, there's a saying in my field which applies to many different industries: the three colors of excellence (or three A’s) have been described as availability, affability, and ability. Infinum has certainly displayed this. They were easy to work with, responsive, and delivered what we asked for.

Are there any areas Infinum could improve?

I can't think of anything off the cuff.