InVooDoo

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder and chief executive officer of Smarter Boxes. We have an app that allows people who are moving to inventory and organize the contents of their moving boxes. Users enter text descriptions and pictures of everything they're packing. The business is made up of only myself at the moment.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with InVooDoo?

I have a software background and had just sold a company, so I was semi-retired and was looking for the next thing to do. My family and I had just moved into a new home. We had a lot of boxes between myself, my wife, and our four kids. I thought that an app would have made my moving process easier. After I did some research on the market, I came to the conclusion that there wasn't really a good solution for this purpose. I decided to create the app which I would've wanted to use, shopped for people to help me build it, and landed on InVooDoo.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

InVooDoo designed and developed my app for iOS. I plan to create an Android version in the next round, also using InVooDoo. I created some very crude wireframes using Balsamiq and handed them to InVooDoo's team. They pushed out the detailed designs and worked on the frontend and backend of the app.

How did you come to work with InVooDoo?

I was only looking to find a partner for the design of the app, initially. I wrote up a brief and asked the candidates to design a couple of the main screens. I paid each of them for eight hours of work in order to see what they would come up with. I liked InVooDoo's work the best. The benefit with them was that they could also do the actual development.

How much have you invested with InVooDoo?

The cost of InVooDoo's work has been between $40,000 and $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with InVooDoo one year ago. We continue to work together on and off.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

InVooDoo's work was excellent, both in terms of design and development. Whenever they said they would do something, they did it. At the same time, they told me when something couldn't be done. I mostly enjoyed that InVooDoo didn't act like a hired gun, but rather like someone who was invested in the end product and planned on using it. They offered opinions and challenged some of my design thinking. I found InVooDoo to be a partner in the process.

InVooDoo did a good job with the development, but our challenge came from selecting Parse as a backend. It has been shut down by Facebook, and no one could have anticipated this. The app has been pulled from the app store since we haven't made a new platform choice yet. When I do make that choice, I absolutely intend to use InVooDoo again without even looking at other options.

How did InVooDoo perform from a project management standpoint?

InVooDoo performed well in terms of meeting deadlines and sticking to the budget. InVooDoo was available and communicative. Our back-and-forth dialogue was very good. More than being a hired developer, they were invested in helping my company be successful.

What did you find most impressive about InVooDoo?

InVooDoo stands out through the quality of their work. I don't plan to look for anyone else for the next phase of my project.

Are there any areas InVooDoo could improve?

None.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the chief executive officer of Veterinarium Corporation. We’ve created a patient-management system that is being used by around 300 veterinary hospitals worldwide, including 100 in Australia and 150 in the US. We have a 35-person team and operate using a software-as-a-service model. We work as a fully-virtual company, with a presence in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US, the UK, and Europe. All of our development is done in Eastern Europe and managed by our on-site CTO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with InVooDoo?

During the earliest stage of our startup, we needed an initial design for the UI [user interface] and UX [user experience] of our application.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Traditionally, there would be clipboards at the ends of patient beds. These contained information for doctors and nurses, allowing them to know what to do with the patient throughout the day. The same thing happens in veterinary hospitals, but the clipboards are placed on cages. We took that paper concept and presented it to InVooDoo in order for them to create a digital version of it. They did so in terms of UI and UX. InVooDoo also provided some development for us later on. Their team specializes in iOS XCode, but we were already switching to internal resources. Our platform also runs on Android and has a .NET backend, but we only used InVooDoo for iOS development.

How did you come to work with InVooDoo?

Our CTO had been working in the same startup community as InVooDoo, which is where the connection happened. I believe that they worked together on some past project and our CTO heard about InVooDoo's design capabilities.

How much have you invested with InVooDoo?

I don't recall the exact number since we had more of an ongoing collaboration with InVooDoo. The company has relocated from Ukraine to the US since that time, so their price ranges are different now.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with InVooDoo 3 1/2 ago. We switched from outsourcing to having all the work done internally 2 years ago. We are still using InVooDoo's original work for our core application.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re still using their original UI/UX designs, and all of our branding expanded from there. InVooDoo's work is Apple-driven in terms of taste, which I like. They also came up with a clever name for our product, which we ended up using for our company. I'm happy with the work, but it became too expensive to continue working with InVooDoo since we were still a startup. We would have used InVooDoo more, had we had the financing.

How did InVooDoo perform from a project management standpoint?

I give InVooDoo an almost perfect score for project management. A maximum score can only be gotten from internal teams, in my opinion. But, as an outsourcing company, InVooDoo performed quite well.

What did you find most impressive about  InVooDoo?

For the UX part of our project, InVooDoo thought of ways in which to simplify things. They cut out several clicks from our initial vision, which was really nice. I contacted InVooDoo's team for general feedback even after our project ended, which they gave us at no cost on a couple of occasions. Because they were so good with our project, I continued to rely on their outside assessment. I would use InVooDoo for any customer-facing application.

Are there any areas InVooDoo could improve?

We would have wanted InVooDoo to be more responsive, but we were impatient since we were a startup. Our expectations were higher than what can be obtained from an external company.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Knowledge Preserve is a software company building multimedia-organizing solutions. I am the president of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with InVooDoo?

Our biggest issue was related to the platform's usability and interface. We needed to determine what our use cases would predominantly be. This required an evaluation of our user base.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our first month of work with InVooDoo was centered around understanding our users and what it was we were trying to accomplish globally. After that, the information was applied to a series of run-throughs of the software and how it was currently organized and navigated. Once InVooDoo gained an understanding of our platform and direction, they put together a list of goals which the typical user may have when interfacing with the program. We vetted and reorganized that list over a few iterations. Then, we put together wireframes in order to have an intuitive image of how those goals could be accomplished. We added colors and dynamics to the designs, coming up with a good interface that would allow people to use the software as they wanted, not as how we saw fit.

How did you come to work with InVooDoo?

I had been watching the software space for a long time and noticed a few rising stars. InVooDoo has a unique skillset of being able to see through the muck and get to the root of things.

How much have you invested with InVooDoo?

The cost of InVooDoo's work was $10,000. They came in under budget.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with InVooDoo one year ago. The project lasted three to four months. We haven't worked together in a while, not because we wouldn't but because we're currently pushing our sales.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Working with InVooDoo was the easiest experience I've had, compared to other overseas companies I've used. InVooDoo is completely focused on not only making sure that we're happy, but that the project is successful. One of the refreshing things about InVooDoo is that they pushed back when we wanted to do something in a certain way and the data didn't match our desires. InVooDoo is obviously an expert in this field, so we appreciated the feedback.

How did InVooDoo perform from a project management standpoint?

I've had no problems with InVooDoo in this area. They were always on point.

What did you find most impressive about InVooDoo?

I would say it's InVooDoo's flexibility. As with anything, we've had a fair amount of scope creep, but InVooDoo understood that projects morph over time and matched us step for step.

Are there any areas InVooDoo could improve?

The one area of improvement was addressed with InVooDoo and they corrected it within a month. They were focused on mobile but we started off by building a desktop application, which is almost unheard of. InVooDoo's team was surprised by this, but they took care of it.