Web & Mobile App Dev for Music Streaming Platform
- Mobile App Development
- Confidential
- Sep. 2015 - Ongoing
- Quality
- 5.0
- Schedule
- 5.0
- Cost
- 5.0
- Willing to Refer
- 5.0
"I love the way these guys work. There is no ego involved."
- Arts, entertainment & music
- Los Angeles, California
- 1-10 Employees
- Phone Interview
- Verified
Mind Studios offers full-scale technological development for a startup website and iOS app, modifying designs as needed and providing marketing suggestions to attract undiscovered songwriters.
The finished app has attracted all 5-star reviews within the first few months on the App Store, as well as extensive social media engagement. Mind Studios’ creative deliverables, flexible workflow, and engaging demeanor continue to strengthen the relationship.
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
BACKGROUND
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the founder and CEO of qWaqq, which is an app we developed and launched for hidden-gems songwriters. Songwriters are pretty much unknown entities. Artists are the faces of their music, and that makes perfect sense, but almost every song you know and love may have been written by the artist in part but was also written primarily by a songwriter behind the scenes. For every song that becomes a hit, generally, songwriters also have a big back catalog of other stuff that never gets released for various reasons, many of which have nothing to do with the quality of the songs. qWaqq is putting those hidden songs out there.
OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE
What challenge were you trying to address with Mind Studios?
We needed some great tech people to develop several different technologies. We needed a website to be built with 2 specific areas. One was a marketing section of the website, which would incorporate some technology as well as a lot of text. Then, there was a completely different section of the website to allow songwriters to upload their content—lyrics, videos, pictures, stories—to qWaqq. We needed people to design those aspects on the marketing side and also to design and build the app. We had designers assist with the creation of other aspects of qWaqq. Mind Studios was involved with the design to a certain extent, but they mostly handle the complete build and app experience.
SOLUTION
What was the scope of their involvement?
Mind Studios is our go-to provider for all aspects of technology. They set up the server and storage systems for all of the content. They created all the technology for the different sections of the website and the app itself. We had some designers involved along the way, but as we started building, things had to be tweaked. Mind Studios handled many of those design tweaks along the way.
They’re also extremely astute, particularly Anton [Co-Founder, Mind Studios], who I deal with almost exclusively. He is the face of the company, at least for us. He’s very skilled on a business level and tackles problems head-on. I am very instrumental in setting our goals. But, this is always a collaboration in terms of both technology and end goals. How can we twist the technology to entice more users, to get more songwriters involved? How can we make it easier for the users and the songwriters? Answering these questions has been a constant tweaking process. We wanted to find ways to scale our idea and make it easier technologically as well as on a design level. Mind Studios has been fantastic about brainstorming about that and making the changes.
They have been really helpful in terms of marketing suggestions, as well as with the technology stuff. Anton is really in tune with the app world. He was the first guy that came to us, for example, and told us that the App Store is now doing ads, and we should try that. They were running a promotion for free advertising for a month at a fairly low cost. Of course, App Sore ads are going to explode in terms of cost once people realize their effectiveness. We put together a little promotion, and Mind Studios assembled the ads and choose the keywords.
The app is just for iOS right now, but that is not due to any technological limitations on their part. We just have a limited budget and little time.
How did you come to work with Mind Studios?
My partner worked with Mind Studios on a number of different projects in the past. He said these guys are fantastic, and I trusted him. We did talk about other options, but it quickly became clear that they were our best choice.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working with them in September of 2015, and the project is ongoing.
RESULTS & FEEDBACK
Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?
We just launched a few months ago, and we are just getting into our social media. The PR part is really starting to pick up steam. It’s been a total team effort, but everything Mind Studios has done has been incredibly helpful. We have hardly any crashes. We posted various iterations in our social media and have gotten fantastic reviews on the App Store, but we can’t find them because every time we do a new iteration, the other reviews go away. We have all 5-star reviews so far in the App Store. Then, we have informal user responses through comments on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, with users saying how much they love the app. That all speaks to what a great job the whole team is doing, but in particular what Mind Studios is doing. I can’t say enough good things about Mind Studios.
How did Mind Studios perform from a project management standpoint?
They are very organized and focused, and they are responsive and communicative. We have a great working relationship, but the time difference is a little difficult. We make it work, and it’s worth it. We Skype and email regularly about what we want to achieve this week or this month, and then they put together an estimate. We prioritize if we need to, they just start building and sending us versions, and we send suggestions. They are very flexible. They are also extremely positive all the time and give us great feedback about different ideas.
What did you find most impressive about Mind Studios?
I can’t speak to other providers because this is the first app that I’ve actually launched and developed. I researched other providers and got a feeling from them, but I didn’t actually work with them. I can address the relationship from a more global perspective in terms of working in different areas of life and business. I love the way these guys work. There is no ego involved. They are very smart and communicative. They’re open to trying stuff but also willing to say when something isn’t a great idea and why. They work really, really hard. They give a lot of their time at odd hours for them. We don’t go crazy and push it to unreasonable extents, but they make themselves available in an appropriate way.
Are there any areas Mind Studios could improve?
The only issue I have had occasionally with them is QA. I examine the app as best as I can, and then I’m relying on them to make sure it’s all going to work in the backend and that there are no hidden problems with text or misspellings. Occasionally, things like that pop up. If they were 5% better in this area, in terms of anticipating issues, that would be great. But, that’s a minor complaint. Overall, these guys are terrific to work with and very good at what they do.
RATINGS
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Quality
5.0Service & Deliverables
"They give us excellent results. The whole team is smart, creative, and flexible."
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Schedule
5.0On time / deadlines
"Sometimes we hope things will be done more quickly, but they’re never ridiculously over optimistic about deadlines. Some wrinkles come up, but that’s the nature of this business. They are very on top of that."
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Cost
5.0Value / within estimates
"I haven’t developed other apps, but from the research that I did into other companies that provide similar services, they seem to be extremely reasonable."
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Willing to Refer
5.0NPS
"I love these guys.