MindK

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of The Game Band, a game development company that builds web-based multiplayer games.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with MindK?

We’re expanding our existing web-only game into a mobile app.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

MindK provides us with mobile app development. They’re building an app for Android and iOS using React Native for our game. The game is obtuse and complicated, and the team has been helping us build a skeleton and framework for the mobile application so we can bring it in-house for continued development and support.

What is the team composition?

We found them through a reference from another company. 

How did you come to work with MindK?

We work with 4–5 people from MindK at any given time. So far, we’ve worked with 2–3 developers, a QA specialist, and a project manager. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $250,000–$300,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2021. Our engagement is ongoing and about to wrap up in June 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The quality of MindK’s work is great, and it’s helped us get to the point we needed. We’re now able to hire in-house developers to build on what they created. Overall, they’ve done a great job kickstarting and laying the technological foundation for mobile development at our company. 

How did MindK perform from a project management standpoint?

We have weekly one-on-one meetings with the project manager and one of the main developers. We also do retrospectives on sprints with the QA specialist and project manager, so there’s a lot of good communication. As for tools, I have access to their Jira, and we use Google Docs, which has been very useful in terms of checklists. 

MindK is responsive whenever we have questions, even though there’s an eight-hour difference between us. They’re really good at responding as quickly as possible. They’re going through the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, and they’re still maintaining communication and responsiveness even though we haven’t asked them to. This response speaks to their dedication to getting the work done and being available. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m happy with MindK’s agility, which relates to their communication. If we need to pivot on something, they’re ready to go in a different direction, and it doesn’t take a lot of energy to move that ship. The team is always there to dig in and help us out when we need to understand anything. Overall, they’re really supportive. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing they need to improve on from the project’s perspective.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our company is creating an app to expedite the music creation process. My position is Chief Experience Officer

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire MindK, and what were your goals?

MindK built the entire experience, both the web app and native apps. They provided a PoC, then MVP, then beta launch. Our goals were to prove the concept, gain momentum with investors and roll out the product.

SOLUTION

How did you select MindK and what were the deciding factors?

We won a contest that MindK had to build our project and continue working with them because it's been such a pleasant, seamless experience.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

The scope of work was a native iOS and android app in addition to a web app. All of the pieces needed to co-exist and work together with each out. The project ran in an agile format - after deciding on and prioritizing functionality for each major step, sprints were created to focus on specific pieces.

Key deliverables include subscription functionality, uploading of thousands of melodies to the system, creation of the web interface, and launch. The app was a PWA and used reactjs as the primary tech.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Main team: that we worked with on a weekly basis

• 1 pm
• 1 BA
• 1 QA
• 1 mobile dev
• 1 web dev
• 1 account person

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We are pre-launch so no measurable outcomes except for investments that were driven by having a working prototype. The project has been going smoother than I could have imagined and this is why we'll continue working with them in the future.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

The PM was great. She and I communicated on daily basis and was very detail-oriented. We used Slack for primary communications then had video calls twice a week. Timelines were broken out by sprints and sprint items were defined in sprint planning at the beginning of the sprint.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

There was no communication lost being in different time zones. It's the first time I've worked with a dev team a distance away that didn't have major (or any, for that matter) hiccups or have things lost in communication.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

I wish we could snatch them and make them a part of out team.