Lickability

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the executive director of product for The Atlantic. I oversee the team that's building our mobile app. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Lickability?

We had had a mobile app for several years, and we decided to redesign and relaunch a new concept for the app. We engaged with Lickability to completely rewrite the app and its functionality. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Lickability developed our mobile app in native iOS code using Swift. They rewrote the app from scratch, focusing on key features that differentiated us from our competitors. These features included a screen showing a curated look at five stories our editors select as the day's must-reads. Additionally, they added functionality for users to access our crossword puzzle. Users could also save articles to read offline and download magazine issues.

The project included a complete redesign with brand new screens and different user-facing touch points. Lickability updated the app to match a new design system and more modern UX patterns. They also helped us align with best practices in other news apps. We preserved some of the previous app's architecture, such as in-app purchases and some of the more technical features. 

Once the app was live, we worked with Lickability for another two years to continue improving it. They helped us support in-app purchases, subscriptions, and linking subscriptions to our internal databases. The team managed our App Store presence regarding the metadata. We also consulted them on the screenshots to include in the App Store.  

What is the team composition?

We worked with a core team of  3–4 people from Lickability. Brian (Partner) was our main point of contact, and we also worked with Matt (Partner), Thomas (Account Manager), and Jillian (Project Manager). 

How did you come to work with Lickability?

Our former product lead had worked with some of the Lickability team earlier in their careers. When it came time for us to develop a mobile app, he leveraged that previous relationship because he knew the quality of Matt and Brian's work and their understanding of news apps in particular. Although we evaluated other providers, the team's knowledge and experience helped seal the deal.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $1.5 million–$2 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from March 2017–March 2022.

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

With the app Lickability built, we saw an increase in downloads, active users, and active days per month from those users. We have much more activity compared to the previous version of the app. While the previous app had some loyal users, they weren't a very large group, and their engagement wasn't growing. With this app, we've seen growth month after month. We haven't had any month where engagement has dropped, or our active users went down. Overall, the app has been a great growth product, and we've been very happy with the engagement results.

We've seen a lot more engagement and regular usage of our iOS app than any other service; readers are using it more frequently than our website or mobile site. However, we decided to stop working with Lickability because we're moving to a single code base powered by React Native, with plans to bring app development in-house. 

How did Lickability perform from a project management standpoint?

They were great at project management. We relied on them entirely to write implementation and bug tickets. They fully owned the Kanban board we had on GitHub and managed the progress of the work. We mainly communicated via Slack.

The team was incredibly flexible, which was important to us. We had months where we asked for a lot of work and others when we were a little quiet, and Lickability was able to flex on and off. Their meeting notes were good, and they were always very transparent about what we discussed in the action items; plus, they were also good at documenting that. They took all the burden of project management off our team, which worked quite well. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was struck by how Lickability approached our relationship like a partnership rather than a client-service relationship. When we discussed new features, enhancements, or bug fixes, they were never just asking what we wanted to do. The team would engage in the conversation with ideas and suggestions. They were constantly looking for opportunities to improve the UX and ensure we met expectations around best practices in the news app industry.

We got high-quality engineering work from them and great responses to incidents and bug fixes. Lickability distinguished themselves as an ideation and thought partner from a product design standpoint. They went above and beyond in being very engaged with us in the app's design and thinking about the user journey. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there was nothing unsatisfying about our partnership.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The best partnerships are those where someone is looking for a thought partner. Although I'm sure Lickability would work fine with different arrangements, their tools are best used to help define the product experience and execute it. I would recommend them to companies that want to leverage the team's subject matter expertise in best practices in the mobile app development and news spaces. That focus would lead to the most fruitful partnerships.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of Aloe Bud, a self-care reminder app for iOS.

What challenge were you trying to address with Lickability?

I had an idea to create a mobile application but didn’t have the technical skills that were needed to develop it. I reached out to Lickability to create a beautiful and fully functional iOS app that could send push notification reminders to people’s devices whenever they set them up.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Lickability worked on the UI/UX design and set me up with an affiliate designer that wasn’t part of the internal team. I also worked with another artist to create the icons that are used throughout the app. I developed the app concept and the design of how it would work. The staff took that concept and translated it into Swift — which is Apple’s programming language — and made the app available to download on the App Store.

What is the team composition?

I worked with Matthew (Partner), Jillian (Project Manager), Thomas (Account Manager), and Michael (Senior iOS Engineer). 

How did you come to work with Lickability?

I had a previous relationship with Matthew, and I reached out to them knowing that they had a development company. I talked to the team about the idea to see if they could help me bring it to life. 

How much have you invested with them?

My business invested between $50,000–$75,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April 2017, but development didn't start until June of the same year. We wrapped up and released the first iteration of the app in March 2018. We’re still technically working together, we just don’t have any ongoing projects right now.

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

Our biggest metric is the fact that the app has about 2 million downloads. We haven’t done any advertising and it’s all been organic. This clearly shows that Lickability has built a great product that has attracted so many people to find it and try it out. 

How did Lickability perform from a project management standpoint?

Lickability was great at being organized and meeting deadlines. Their style of communication is awesome; there was never a time I had to follow up with the team. They created a dedicated Slack channel for us so we could talk to each other daily and check in on what was going on — it was nice to have that space to stay updated. 

In the beginning, we met once a week over video hangouts to check the project’s progress and other aspects of it. As the project advanced, our check-ins weren’t as often, but when we did have them, they would be filled with excellent updates. We used a project management tool to see all of the different projects and tasks that were in development, and I could at any time look over the app status. A project manager was always in contact with me and was clear and concise in her messaging.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I very much enjoyed how they were professional yet easy to work with and talk to. They have the amazing ability to make app development feel like a fun experience. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have anything for them to improve. They’re pretty great.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Come to Lickability with a clear and well-thought-out idea. The more documentation you have, the easier it will be for the team to start working right away and turn your idea into a reality.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an iOS engineer at a digital disposable camera experience app.

What challenge were you trying to address with Lickability?

We saw that our Japanese userbase was growing quickly. We wanted to localize the app as quickly as possible so it could be used in Japanese instead of English.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Lickability helped us translate our app on the iOS side. They did everything from simple word translation to more complicated measures. They also gave us guidance on how to implement the translation on the server-side as well for push notifications.

What is the team composition?

We worked with Matthew (Partner), Jillian (Project Manager), Thomas (Account Manager), Brian (Partner), and Andrew (Partner).

How did you come to work with Lickability?

I posted a job listing on an iOS forum. We had a prior relationship with Matthew and he reached out. We knew Lickability could do the job efficiently and they did.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2021, and we wrapped up in March 2021. The project took about two weeks in total.

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

They translated the app efficiently. Now our Japanese users can read the app in Japanese, which was our goal.

How did Lickability perform from a project management standpoint?

They were great at communication and meeting deadlines. They finished ahead of time and we had a shared channel that was easy to ask questions in. We did one initial video call and moved to a continuous chat every 1–2 days.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The quality and speed of their work were really great. They were nice, great people who got the job done.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I’m totally satisfied.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a clear project to assign them and they’ll do it. It’s pretty straight-forward.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of a startup called GoGoGames. We produce audio adventures for kids. Through our app, users listen to storylines, but unlike a podcast, they also hear directions and can become part of the story themselves by acting them out in the real world.

What challenge were you trying to address with Lickability?

Our last contractor left, so we needed a partner to do iOS app development work.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They took over a previous code base, but they ended up starting over from scratch. They implemented our designs and developed the initial version of the app before helping us get it launched on the App Store.

They did some product capability work for us. For example, they figured out how to use multiplayer connectivity through devices so our users could talk to each other. They also researched how to play synchronized audio on different devices.

They also helped us hire our lead iOS app developer. They ran the recruiting and screening process and recommended different candidates.

What is the team composition?

We worked with 3–4 people and our primary contact was a developer. We started with Daisy (iOS Engineer), but then we transitioned to Andrew (Partner). Matt (Partner) is overseeing the project as a code reviewer and product lead. Finally Jillian (Project Manager) and Tom (Account Manager) handled project management and account management stuff.

How did you come to work with Lickability?

We tried to hire Matt at my last company about 10 years ago and I’ve always respected him. When a friend of mine recommended them, I was excited to have the chance to work with him.

How much have you invested with them?

Our average invoice cost between $20,000–$30,000. Over the course of our engagement, we probably spent $250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted from April 2020–February 2021.

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

They built a really high-quality product, and our first version is live on the App Store. They clearly know the ins-and-outs of developing for iOS. I think they’re among the best developers in the world.

When assessing their work, we measured the speed and the stability of the product as well as how well looks and functions. We examined everything from how it worked on different screen to how well it performs and how elegant their solutions are for loading time lags.

We also got pretty good feedback from the iOS developer candidates that we considered; they enjoyed working with Lickability.

How did Lickability perform from a project management standpoint?

They used a GitHub Kanban board to manage the project. They did a good job keeping the board up to date, clearing tickets, and asking questions through Slack.

They were professional and organized. Like a train station, they were always on schedule. They were on top of things and were never late to a call.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were thorough and thoughtful about each line of code. They paid attention to detail and thought about each decision they made and what the implications were.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’re used to working with larger customers that are more focused on quality than speed. A few times, I told them to prioritize speed instead. We’re a new startup, so getting the product out there was our priority.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re expensive but worth every penny.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the iOS lead for Houseparty, which is a product by Epic Games. It’s a social video chat app on iOS, Android, and the web.

What challenge were you trying to address with Lickability?

We have a big team but wanted more throughput and a really high standard for our iOS app. We brought Lickability on to help us build high-quality features for the iOS app and build more features at once.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have an ongoing contract with Lickability for two years. They’re a solid part of our iOS team. During this time, they’ve consistently delivered technical work and product work for the iOS app. They’ve even taken on some driving roles on projects.

Lickability has helped us write the code for the solution, including features. They’ve also done some light project management for us. They’re gathering requirements and addressing issues that arise during development with stakeholders. Their developers are a full-fledged part of our development writing in Swift, Python, and Bash.

In recent history, they’ve been instrumental in delivering a feature we call Fortnite Mode. It integrates Fortnite with Houseparty. While users are playing Fortnite, they can video chat through Houseparty and see the video chat appear inside the Fortnite game. That was a big, complex feature that they helped us deliver on time.

They also helped build out Karaoke which is one of the games users can play inside Houseparty. That was a very complex feature with a lot of moving pieces and teams involved. Lickability helped work with those teams as well as coordinate and deliver really a high-quality experience for our users.

What is the team composition?

We have three developers who all serve as software engineers.

How did you come to work with Lickability?

They’ve been working with Houseparty since before I joined.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested over $1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement started around January 2017.

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

The metrics we look at are the crash rate of the app and the quality of the experience, which is qualitative. Everyone on the team is using the app constantly, both for testing and personal use. We look at the quality of the app. Specifically for Lickability, we look at the quality of the features they work on as well as their communication. They excel along all those dimensions.

Their team is proactive about communicating their status and they communicate respectfully. They write clearly and concisely about what they’re working on and what blockers they’re encountering. They’re some of the most solid iOS developers I’ve ever worked with. They know the iOS platform inside and out and pay incredible attention to detail. Lickability presents themselves as expert developers in every way.

How did Lickability perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re great with project management. Their team is good at translating requirements in the code. They excel in reading technical specs and then understanding what’s missing, what’s there, and what needs to be clarified.

Lickability is working on a fast-moving product. We need to ship things and it’s not always clear what exactly needs to happen from day one. They’re great at dealing with and resolving a lot of the murkiness that rises from the environment we work in. We utilize Jira, Slack, and Notion.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have an incredibly rare combination of humility and expertise. There are expert developers and there are humble developers, but finding both in the same package isn’t common. All three developers are an incredible mix of top-tier excellence in engineering but they’re also really humble and easy to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing comes to mind. They excel in everything we care about.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Ask them for insight and questions outside the direct scope of work. they have a lot of experience working across a lot of different projects and ideas. You can give them a scope of work and they’ll absolutely nail it. But you’ll get a lot more out of it if you ask and listen to their answers around best practices and recommendations for the project.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm creating an app for parents to read children's book to their children. I'm the creator and designer of the product.

For what projects/services did your company hire Lickability?

I worked with Lickability and had them architect and develop the iOS app.

What were your goals for this project?

The goal was to design and build an MVP for the initial product and soft launch it by late Summer of 2020.

How did you select this vendor?

I was referred to them by a few different friends.

Describe the project in detail.

I was working on building an app that lets parents access a catalog of the best independent children's books and read those stories to their children, conveniently on their phones. I designed the app and reached out the Lickability to build it for iOS.

What was the team composition?

I primarily worked with a project manager and two engineers. They were all extremely knowledgable and helpful through the process. Also, they were super responsive and easy to communicate with.

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

In the end, I had a high quality, fully working app with an easy to use backend that I could use to use to populate content into the app. The team also helped me prep for launch via the Apple Connect.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very effective. We had weekly sync and ongoing conversations via a dedicated Slack channel that they set up for the project. Very seamless.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They were flexible and willing to work within my constraints. They were always able to communicate different options for how to architect and develop the app and work with me to come up with the ideal solution.

Are there any areas for improvement?

They're a bit pricey. As an individual creator, it's hard to rationalize using them for all my projects. However, they do produce quality work, so it's a trade-off.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the founder of an IT company.

For what projects/services did your company hire Lickability?

We were looking for additional mobile development bandwidth.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to improve an existing application’s performance.

How did you select this vendor?

Lickability was recommended by a colleague.

Describe the project in detail.

We had a performance issue with an existing application. Lickability came to the rescue. They also followed up with recommendations for next steps when the time is right.

What was the team composition?

We primarily worked with Andrew (Partner, Lickability).

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

In under a week, Lickability resolved performance issues with our mobile app to an acceptable level.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Lickability has an extremely competent team. They were extremely flexible in communication. I joined their Slack channel and did extensive video shares since we were working remotely. 

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They were extremely knowledgeable about everything I asked of them.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, there were no areas for improvement.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the COO of a mobile app company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Lickability?

We needed to fill a hiring gap, and they provided development services to extend our team’s engineering efforts.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The app is for iOS, and it was coded in Swift. We used Lickability for development work.

What is the team dynamic?

We worked with Matthew Bischoff [Partner, Lickability] and Brian Capps [Partner, Lickability].

How did you come to work with Lickability?

I used to work with Matt at a different company. I heard that he had started his own firm and that they were contracting resources.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been working with them since December 2016. We’ve been able to expand and contract regarding the amount of services, depending on our needs and our product road map.

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

The amount of code that they've committed has been on par with our full-time employees. They are very productive and efficient.

How did Lickability perform from a project management standpoint?

They are great. They’re extremely organized, transparent, and willing to give and accept feedback to build a better working relationship. They have also utilized our development tools so that we can track their work and collaborate. It's been a positive experience overall, which is why we've been engaged with them for so long.

When we first contracted them, it was meant to be a three-month stint, but we continued to work with them since they truly felt like a part of our team. Matt started out coding, but now he's taken on more of a project management role. Brian works mostly as a developer.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We've worked with other people, and we expand and contract. We’re currently working with Matt and Brian, but we have also worked with two other people on their team. In terms of capabilities, they are all proven technicians and very accomplished engineers. They've worked at other prestigious companies before, and they bring those best practices and insights with them.

I think this is a little bit different than some of the other companies we've worked with, which tend to hire junior people and train them through contracting work. Talent tends to use those companies as a jumping-off point, whereas Lickability is a much more senior team. Their business is a lifestyle for them, so they’re able to contract really talented people.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We would certainly much rather work with them in person and have them in our office more often. Some other firms we've worked with were much more flexible in that regard. However, they do a great job of working remotely, being collaborative, and using all our tools. But I would love it if they could spend time in our office with us once a month.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Respondent 1: I’m the executive director for digital product and technology at The Atlantic, a 160-year-old magazine.

Respondent 2: I was the primary designer on our side throughout the project.

What challenge were you trying to address with Lickability?

Respondent 1: We had an app that's been on the market since the early days of the iPad. It’s gone through a couple of different iterations over the years and was desperately in need of an update.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Respondent 1: They came to town for two days in the beginning as we determined our requirements and outlined the content API and registration API. They helped determine which aspects they would handle, and which aspects we could manage in-house in order to cut costs.

Respondent 2: They suggested very strongly that we develop the app through Swift, so we took their advice. They used the latest version at the time and have already suggested that we update the app to Swift 4.0 for next year.

In terms of features, they took advantage of a number of stock iOS capabilities. They built in support for Dynamic Type and fixed bugs on our API for content delivery.

They also integrated with our partners for account management, as well as third-party code for Omniture, Firebase, and YouTube.

What is the team dynamic?

Respondent 1: We primarily worked with Michael Liberatore [iOS Engineer, Lickability] and Brian Capps [Co-Founder, Lickability]. They served as developers throughout the project.

How did you come to work with Lickability?

Respondent 1: I knew of Lickability through their excellent work with The New Yorker app. I checked their references and contacted them along with a few other vendors.

Our previous app lacked stability, partially because we made bad requests during the build and saw no pushback from the developer. We wanted a partner who could help guide our thinking for this project, so we approached these vendors with a general idea for the app, but without a firm plan.

Respondent 2: We met in person to discuss scope and vision. They answered any questions we had and offered their expertise on the best way to create the product.

How much have you invested with them?

Respondent 1: We spent slightly more than $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Respondent 1: Our first meeting took place at the end of April 2017 and we shipped the app on August 23. It was a quick build.

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

Respondent 1: We took an app that was previously a premium model and turned it into a fully-gated, paid model. We honestly weren't sure what to expect, but I can say that we are very pleased with the conversion rate. It’s higher than we expected and our renewal rate is strong.

We also had a chat with Apple about how our app performed during an accessibility audit. They were very pleased with the work Lickability had done.

Respondent 2: Our average review score has also improved dramatically.

How did Lickability perform from a project management standpoint?

Respondent 2: We communicated regularly via conference calls and Slack, and exchanged design proposals through Zeplin. Requirements were documented through Google Docs.

They also had an organized checklist that made submitting to the App Store a very smooth process.

Respondent 1: They used GitHub to keep tickets clear and meticulously labeled whether specific aspects related to pre- or post-launch of the product. They never missed a deadline and clearly articulated anything they needed from our end.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Respondent 1: They pay close attention to detail and are very proactive developers. They pushed back on us if we made a request that would ultimately harm the app’s overall performance and made sure the app would scale well for for future cellphone sizes.

They were real partners. It didn’t feel like they were cranking through a quick contract and moving on.

Respondent 2: They care about small details and often caught things we missed. It was good to know our developers cared as much as we did.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Respondent 1: It feels like a cop out to say that I don't have anything noteworthy here, but they were just a breath of fresh air.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Respondent 1: I strongly recommend them. They delivered on time, offered proactive suggestions for improvement, and took pride in their work.

Respondent 2: If you want a company to simply build a product based on rote instructions, then Lickability may not be the right choice. They’re real partners and will work with you to ensure that an end product is the best it can be.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Meetup is a digital consumer website and mobile app whose focus is bringing people together around things that they love.

I am a Director of Product. I focus on member engagement by keeping members active through finding value in Meetup.

What challenge were you trying to address with Lickability?

We had decided to completely rewrite our iOS app and didn't have enough resources in-house to make it happen on the timeline we wanted, so we contacted Lickability.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They were very much seen as full-time Meetup employees in that they were invested in the quality of the outcome as much as we were. They were in discussions from day zero when we were talking about even deciding whether or not to rewrite our app. Lickability was involved in helping make that decision, doing some rough estimation of the level of effort of that decision, and then helping to strategize exactly how to execute the rewrite. Once we were actually in development mode, Lickability led all of our engineering, including a lot of the high-level architecture of not only the software itself but also of even how we work as a team. They made recommendations on our processes and best practices for making quality apps. On a day-to-day level, they were doing coding and making parts of the app happen.

How did you come to work with Lickability?

My manager, who's our Vice President of Product, had worked with most of them when they were all full-time employees at The New York Times.

What is the status of this engagement?

We engaged with them on the project sometime around June of 2015. The number one milestone of launching the redesigned app is completed. That said, they're still with us and continue to work with us on iterations and future versions of the app.

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

One big metric is that we hit our goal of our relaunch date. We could never have done that without Lickability.

Also, the response to the project itself has been super positive amongst a lot of different segments of people. Another step is that the code base is now 100% written in Swift programming language and there is 0% of code from our old app. It really was completely rewritten.

How did Lickability perform from a project management standpoint?

That's one of the best things about my experience working with them. I've worked with solid engineers in the past, but Lickability goes beyond with really, really great project management. Like I said earlier, we really thought of them as full-time employees in that they participated in every planning meeting. They were as communicative about their progress on things and any issues they encountered as any full-time employee would be.

What did you find most impressive about Lickability?

Their place among iOS developers in the world is really high. They are like the rock stars of the iOS scene and it makes it really great to work with them because they're at the forefront of that whole domain. Their investment, and I don't mean financially, I mean mentally or spiritually, is very high for a contractor. They were as interested in making a quality app as any of us were.

Are there any areas Lickability could improve?

It's really hard for me to think of anything. Maybe there's something to improve upon with cost, but I can't speak to that.