MindSea

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Betterwise, an educational software company that develops content for high school students to prepare for adult life. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with MindSea?

We hired MindSea for UX/UI design and mobile app development. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

MindSea initially helped us build a blueprint for our project, which will be available for iOS and Android. We spent several months working through the conceptual framework to determine the offerings and what architecture needed to be implemented to satisfy its functionality. MindSea also conducted iterative interviews with potential users. 

After that, we began with development; MindSea has been responsible for all the front- and backend development and design. The whole site is built with React Native, and we use a Java-based framework on the backend. The initial design work was created with Figma. 

The app is primarily made up of short videos arranged into lessons around topics; when a user logs in, they can see all of the videos. One of the challenges that we’ve had to overcome with MindSea is a way to seamlessly present those educational videos and ask users questions about the videos they’ve just watched. MindSea has also developed a web-based administrative tool on the backend where we can design videos and quizzes and upload them. We are currently conducting iterative user testing. 

What is the team composition?

We work with a senior architect, a frontend developer, a designer, a site reliability engineer, and a project manager. 

How did you come to work with MindSea?

We found them through a referral; we knew other entrepreneurs that had used their services and were very pleased with MindSea. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested more than $1 million. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2021, and the engagement is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The application we’re building has already attracted over 1,300 trial users and we have more than 800 pieces of content already in the application. We’ve been able to create a very high-quality product in a short amount of time due to their assistance. The work is incredibly complex, but they’ve been able to churn out an offering that we’ve been very happy with.

They’re giving our customers a seamless, stable experience with no downtime, which we consider a success. 

How did MindSea perform from a project management standpoint?

They deliver on time, within budget, and are always true to their word. We communicate with their team daily and use Trello and Basecamp for project management and Slack for communication. 

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

We’d like to shout out Dennis (Director of Product Management). He’s done a fantastic job collaborating with us and ensuring everything is delivered on time. He’s also built new QA systems and has done an excellent job supporting us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

MindSea is ethical and never over-promises; they treat us like a partner and are highly transparent. They’re accommodating, and they care about the project. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing that we can come up with. We have a good relationship with their team and communicate about everything. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Invest in the blueprint process and take your time building the design elements. Take advantage of MindSea’s willingness to have open communication. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Director, Innovations and Solutions of an agriculture company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We provide services to dairy cattle breeders across the country.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire MindSea to accomplish?

• Build a mobile application to offer services.

SOLUTION

How did you find MindSea?

Online Search

Why did you select MindSea over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from MindSea were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Mindsea led the project management and mobile development of our application. We followed an agile approach, and an iterative design and development process. MindSea had a dedicated team approach to designing, developing, testing and delivering our project components which included: a mobile app accessible on both iOS & Android using a React Native Framework and working together with our technical team on APIs, and backend support.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We launched our application within reasonable allowances for budget and timeline. The success of the application is being measured by engagement, solicited reviews and interaction among our membership.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

An agile approach, weekly standup meetings, items delivered on track and well communicated when scope changes would influence timelines.

What was your primary form of communication with MindSea?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

It is a very engaged team, friendly and very easy to work with. They integrated well with our own team and were excellent at communicating and giving us visibility in to their progress and what they were working on through tools like Slack, Figma and Trello.

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

No major complaints.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive at an economic development organization.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with MindSea?

We were trying to increase the attachment of recent local and international grads to the local labor market through an app — we were already working with 33 communities across Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, and the US, but we wanted to grow that reach. We wanted to allow candidates to learn about their industry and hopefully build a professional network to find a carrier in their field.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

MindSea is doing mobile app development for iOS and Android, taking over the work other providers left behind. They’re creating a face-to-face platform that allows newcomers to build a professional network by connecting them with a volunteer connector from the business community within the sector they wish to work. Consequently, the user and the connector meet so the ladder can forward the grad to three of their business referrals in that industry.

What is the team composition?

We’ve been working with Reuben (CEO), a project manager, and their development team.

How did you come to work with MindSea?

We were already working with another provider but were unsatisfied with their work, so we submitted an RFP and decided to go with MindSea.

How much money have you invested in this partnership?

So far, we’ve spent $500,000 CAD (approximately $364,000 USD) with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2019, and the engagement is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their team has been very knowledgeable and has taken the time to know our company and our goals.

How did MindSea perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is excellent; they meet deadlines and stay within budget. Regarding tools, we use Trello, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and weekly phone calls.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’ve been communicative and keep us updated on everything, which has helped us stay within budget. We have no surprises on their end because they give us costs before doing anything.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’ve experienced a turnover in program managers, but we know this is common with every industry because the market is tight.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Before reaching out to them, try to have a general knowledge of the task you’re giving them to make this easier.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive at an economic development organization.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with MindSea?

We were trying to increase the attachment of recent local and international grads to the local labor market through an app — we were already working with 33 communities across Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, and the US, but we wanted to grow that reach. We wanted to allow candidates to learn about their industry and hopefully build a professional network to find a carrier in their field.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

MindSea is doing mobile app development for iOS and Android, taking over the work other providers left behind. They’re creating a face-to-face platform that allows newcomers to build a professional network by connecting them with a volunteer connector from the business community within the sector they wish to work. Consequently, the user and the connector meet so the ladder can forward the grad to three of their business referrals in that industry.

What is the team composition?

We’ve been working with Reuben (CEO), a project manager, and their development team.

How did you come to work with MindSea?

We were already working with another provider but were unsatisfied with their work, so we submitted an RFP and decided to go with MindSea.

How much money have you invested in this partnership?

So far, we’ve spent $500,000 CAD (approximately $364,000 USD) with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2019, and the engagement is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their team has been very knowledgeable, has taken the time to know our company and our goals.

How did MindSea perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is excellent; they meet deadlines and stay within budget. Regarding tools, we use Trello, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and weekly phone calls.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’ve been communicative and keep us updated on everything, which has helped us stay within budget. We have no surprises on their end because they give us costs before doing anything.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’ve experienced a turnover in program managers, but we know this is common with every industry because the market is tight.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Before reaching out to them, try to have a general knowledge of the task you’re giving them to make this easier.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the VPE of a Series A startup. Our company provides a platform that we describe as the Operating System for DE &I.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire MindSea?

We needed staff augmentation very early on in our journey towards where we are right now. Specifically, we need backend developers (Elixir) and Frontend Developers as well (React). Mindsea was not only able to provide us with the developers for those roles, they subsequently provided us with Designers as well.

SOLUTION

How did you select this agency and what were the deciding factors?

Our Engineering leadership had some familiarity with Mindsea and so the introductions were made to get discussions started. We went through the project description phase, requirement gathering phase, estimation phase, and then an alignment on the kind of resources that we needed for the project. The Mindsea team was very professional through it all and very flexible in terms of adjusting to changes in requirements along the way.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

The backend developer they provided was instrumental in the initial architecture of the platform. Additionally, he was the main developer in helping to get the project off the ground. Likewise, the frontend developers helped shape the development of the UI for our main project. The main project was successfully completed late last year and they stayed on to help us in our next phase of the platform development work.

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

We trusted Mindsea's internal recruiting process in identifying and selecting candidates. After that, we reviewed resumes that they submitted and picked from them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were able to release our first DE & I platform thanks to the support from the Mindsea team. The Mindsea team formed the bulk of our development team throughout that project and worked really well with our in-house developers to take that project to successful completion.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

At Mathison, we pride ourselves on creating a highly collaborative and inclusive environment. The Mathison team was right at home with this philosophy and fit in really well with our in-house team. They operated not as an extension of the team, but rather as part of the cross-functional teams that they worked on.

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

They provided us with high-skilled developers who showed time again that they could be trusted to handle critical assignments and complete them with high quality.

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

We were overall very satisfied with the Mindsea team and thoroughly enjoyed working with them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in biomedical engineering at the University of Toronto. I also work in the Orthopedics Biomechanics Laboratory and Research Institute, which is part of the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. I focus on machine learning for the healthcare industry, specifically analytics physiotherapy with inertial sensors in smartwatches. Additionally, I help manage the studies going on in our lab, as well as hundreds of patients.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with MindSea?

We were taking a new study off the ground. Previously, we had validated our technology using commercial smartwatches to pull in data and analyze it using machine learning to predict when patients were doing physiotherapy. However, that wasn’t providing any feedback to the patients or physiotherapists, so we needed an app that could present feedback about how well and accurately patients were doing their physiotherapy at home.

We also wanted this app to show the feedback in real-time to patients and physiotherapists as patients were doing the exercises using the app. That way, when patients return to the clinic, physiotherapists would be able to provide them with advice and support as needed. We needed an external company to help us develop this app, so we hired MindSea.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

MindSea helped us develop our app for Android devices, although we might create an iOS version in the future. We actually purchased Andriod tablets to be used for a study for both patients and physiotherapists using this app.

One of our requirements was using data from the hospital, but we had to adhere to strict regulatory guidelines. One of the solutions that we came up with was implementing a separate database to store our patients’ data, which was previously only accessible to Sunnybrook’s staff. MindSea helped us create this separate database to store patients' data and walked us through accessing it and interpreting it. Now, any debugging can be done using this database, which is accessible to MindSea.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with up to half a dozen people from MindSea at a given time, depending on the part of the project we’re working on. The project manager has been our main point of contact throughout this project.

How did you come to work with MindSea?

Someone from our lab was in charge of the initial development, and he came up with the idea for the underlying machine-learning technology for physiotherapy analysis. He identified various companies and interviewed them.

After interviewing MindSea, he got feedback from people who had worked with them previously. Ultimately, he chose them based on the interactions he had with them and their proposal.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $200,000 CAD (approximately $157,000 USD). Our initial contract was for $176,000 CAD (approximately $138,000 USD), but we’ve had a couple of additions along the way.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in August 2020, and our partnership is ongoing. However, it is on pause. After MindSea developed the app and the database, it was our turn to do all the work on the hospital side to get the permits and recruit patients to kickstart the study. We will have patients and physiotherapists using the app for the next 4–5 months, and based on their feedback, we will go back to MindSea and ask them to implement changes to the app as needed.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The fact that we now have patients using the app in the clinic and have had great feedback from them so far is evidence that what MindSea did works. The app is very intuitive to use, at least for the first few patients and the physiotherapists, although we will tend to have some older patients using it who may need help. Still, the fact that we’re actively conducting the study is proof that MindSea was able to deliver what we needed based on the project’s requirements.

How did MindSea perform from a project management standpoint?

MindSea’s project management is very good. Based on previous experience, I was really impressed when they spent an entire day with us mapping out our exact needs so that they could have a thorough understanding of our project. They also helped us have a thorough understanding of what we were looking for regarding the app design. This was a very useful activity.

MindSea is also very responsive and has quick turnaround times. We identified 1–2 minor bugs along the way, but they rapidly corrected them and didn’t interfere with the patient data collection.

Additionally, they’re very good at communicating and giving feedback along the way to ensure that we know at which stage of the project we are. For example, we’ve used different applications like Trello to see what they’re working on. They also created a Slack channel for us so that we could get instant feedback. In addition to that, we communicate via email, and we’ve had weekly meetings at certain points of the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

MindSea’s project management distinguishes them from other providers; they’ve done a very good job in that regard. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of something that MindSea could improve on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make full use of the initial engagement meeting and come prepared, being willing to input your own thoughts about what you want. However, keep in mind that MindSea is also very capable of helping you walk along this process and determine your project’s needs.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We're a full-service marketing agency for the digital health industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We've completed marketing work on behalf of MindSea, but we've also taken on comarketing initiatives with our agency and MindSea.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

MindSea is a team of incredibly talented and collaborative people. It was a no-brainer for us to work with them and recommend that others do, should they have the opportunity to do so.

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

Marketing automation, website building, content development, messaging, strategizing around the digital health industry, podcast production (Moving Digital Health), business reporting, and more.

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

Four. CEO, Head of Sales, Head of Creative, and Product Manager.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have succeeded with MindSea in:

• Understanding key needs and developing solutions for the digital health industry.
• Supporting website development and copywriting
• Building a valuable co-marketing relationship
• Developing communications about why MindSea is the best at developing applications for the digital health industry

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

Adjectives that come to mind about MindSea's style include:

• Detailed
• Creative
• Collaborative
• Kind
• Ambitious
• Thoughtful

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

I've worked with a number of designer and developers over the last decade. MindSea has some of the most talented designers and developers I've encountered. AND- typically when you come across such talent in this space, it's paired with strong egos. The MindSea team exhibits such professional humility.

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

I wouldn't be comfortable talking about areas for improvement for MindSea without sharing how that relates to the shortcomings my team has brought to the partnership, and this doesn't feel like the correct forum to do so.

The MindSea team truly was professional and expert. While there are always areas for improvement, they truly exhibited excellence with their work.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of an early-stage motion recognition API company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with MindSea?

We hired them to develop an application for physical therapy, which was sort of a proof of concept (POC) of our technology.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

MindSea has developed two Android apps to be used in clinics. One of them is for patients to use their smartwatches to track their own physical therapy performance. The other one is for practitioners. There’s also a web portal associated with it for managing users. The staff developed a Wear OS app that runs on the connected Android smartwatch. 

The app allows physical therapists to onboard patients and assign exercises and diagnoses in an initial appointment. The patients can use their respective app to go to an exercise library within it and watch videos with instructions on how to do them correctly. As they perform the exercises, they’re connected to the smartwatch, which tracks reps, compares their performance to their personalized baseline, and gives reports on their progress and accuracy to motivate them. 

All the information is securely shared and provides objective data for the therapist to treat the patient. 

What is the team composition?

My main point of contact is Reuben (CEO). 

How did you come to work with MindSea?

I didn’t select MindSea, one of our founders did when I came on board. However, I was familiar with the team because I had shortlisted them for another development project for a startup I worked with. I think the staff was hired because of their expertise in the medical technology space, and the fact that they’ve won awards for their work both in Canada and the US. 

How much have you invested with them?

We have spent around $135,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement started in December 2020, and it’s ongoing. The main project is now completed, so we’re currently working on a few more revisions.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

This has been an elastic kind of project where not all details had been predefined. Even so, we came in around 13% over estimates, which is pretty good. MindSea always has been able to find workarounds when we’ve had changes in the scope — they’ve been good and agile partners. 

Our business has gotten quality work from their team. Before the revisions, the delivery of the final product took a little longer, but that’s because of the dynamic nature of the project, not so much because of the developers themselves. The cost has been slightly higher than estimated, but that’s usually how things work out. 

How did MindSea perform from a project management standpoint?

Our team has held weekly meetings and used Trello. We’ve also used Figma to review designs together.

What did you find most impressive about them?

MindSea seems to attract quality people. Our project has had a few personnel changes — which is normal in the tech business — and the newly hired employees they’ve assigned to us have been really talented. 

I like that initially, the staff spent a good amount of time doing UX research before diving into the design — that was appropriate and professional and helped us understand our customers better. MindSea’s real strength lies in their UI/UX research processes which allow them to be more effective. They are not just focused on the customer that’s hiring them, but also on the end user experience. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

The team can get better at estimating scores. We’ve had some situations in which a Scrum phase gets a low score on its estimate and when we dig deeper into it, it suddenly has a giant Fibonacci number on it. A phase can look small, but it can involve 10 subtasks to complete it. 

At times, they’ve also rolled out with bugs that we wished they had caught before. However, these are pretty minor quibbles. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The more you can invest at the beginning of the project, the fewer surprises you’ll have later on. Take the time to make sure that your requirements and business objectives are as clear as they can be and are very well understood to make the most out of the relationship and send the staff down the right path.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the co-founder of a company called Constant Health, which is a digital platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with MindSea?

We have a brick-and-mortar operation called Bariatric Medical Institute and have been doing medical weight management for the last 17 years. We understand the clinical side of weight management and wanted to get into the technology side. However, we were super apprehensive about getting into tech because the complexity of building a good app can be incredibly difficult. Building an app itself can be easy, but building a good app is hard. We wanted to find experts that could help us do build an app we could be proud of.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They did a little bit of everything in this complex development project. There are five parts to it: the Android version, the iOS version, a clinical portal, a patient front web portal, and a service-side portal. It was a large-scale endeavor, so we broke the project into bite-sized pieces. We wanted to work with a team that was adaptable and able to work with us as we went forward.

When we first started, the scope was just the iOS build. There were two reasons for this: the expense of building the app for various platforms in a native environment and our desire to pinpoint common mistakes through testing to learn from them in future builds. By starting off with one platform, we helped ourselves avoid similar mistakes on the second platform.

We had a little bit of design work, to begin with. We were working with a company here in Ottawa, but they only deal with design. They were partnering with another development agency, but we decided to abandon that engagement because we were worried the designs wouldn't make sense with the development if we were working with two separate partners.

After reviewing their mockups with MindSea, we saw that there was a lot of rework to be done. Our previous partner was designing a solution for a hybrid platform rather than a native one, so the mockup only provided a somewhat general idea of how the project should go.

What is the team composition?

I'm very hands-on, so I met with their entire team at the start of the project. I flew out to their office and met with 10 people: three developers, four designers, the CEO, and everyone else on the team. Since then, I primarily worked with a project manager, who is also the lead designer.

As time passed, I've been more involved with the developers as well. I have been lucky enough to work with the same lead developer who is doing the server and iOS work. The project manager and lead developer are the people that I regularly interact with.

How did you come to work with MindSea?

We may have found them through Clutch. From there I met with their former CEO, who I'm still friends with. He was great at his job, despite only being there for a month. They seemed to understand what we were trying to accomplish better than the other teams we considered. We met with five different agencies, and MindSea seemed like the best fit.

At the time, Bill (Former CEO), had gone through a fairly meaningful weight loss himself and appreciated the issue we were trying to solve. Aside from them being able to make pretty solutions, they also had a real belief in what we were trying to do. That was what allowed us to start working with them.

How much have you invested in them?

We've spent at least $400,000–$500,000 at this point.

MindSea has a share of Constant Health, which was part of the deal. They worked at cost to help build out the app because it was such a robust project. Our work evolved from there. Through government funding we received, MindSea actually has lent us some of their employees to go on our payroll. It truly is a partnered venture that we're doing together.

What is the status of this engagement?

I agreed to get going with them in September 2020, and the project is still ongoing. We're still using them for Android work. With two of their employees also doing some of the work on our internal payroll, we are doing all the server, iOS, and web portal work internally.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our app is a tool for clients to work with clinicians in a more seamless manner. For weight management, it's hard to track and communicate issues or success between appointments. It is usually one of three things: the person is incredibly successful, the person is not so successful but the clinician doesn't know until they come back, or the person is not so successful and chooses not to come back out of embarrassment.

Through their help with our product, we've been able to remove embarrassment and feelings of failure during this process because of the real-time feedback for the clinicians through a client's struggles. From that standpoint, it has been incredibly successful. In a typical weight management program, there's about 40% attrition, and we currently have about 14% attrition.

How did MindSea perform from a project management standpoint?

Communication is awesome through Slack and definitely not a problem. I learned working with technology is like building a house. There is definitely scope creep and changes through the process that complicate things. We either learn new things, problems present themselves, or there are new features you want to build out, so I definitely take some blame in terms of delays.

I'm sure some of it is on their end too. Things like staff turnover or people are getting spread too thin with multiple projects could both be issues. They're about average when it comes to deadlines, but I wouldn’t put all the blame on them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team I work with is phenomenal. Warren (Senior Product Designer & Design Team Lead) is a rockstar who I couldn’t be happier with. We've become genuine friends and the same can be said about the teammate who onboarded us.

With the team that I have been dealing with thus far, it's a friendship as much as it's a business relationship. That is always something that I want to strive for because I believe in real partnership. Lots of people talk about partnership, but it’s not always achieved. They came through on that end.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The price became an issue at times because the number of hours they originally estimated was way off. They came down on price because their estimations were off, but that's probably the biggest issue. we faced. They resolved this, but they were 40% off their estimated hours required to build the product. That was a big deal and pretty problematic. 

They did rectify it as best as they could. I have to be reasonable as well; they’re not going to work for free, and that has been the only real issue we've had with this project.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be involved. When I talked to the team, I asked what I can do to make their jobs better and easier. The difference is having someone from the company involved on a regular basis. We had a Slack channel, and I was always involved in meetings. When problems came up, I always responded within a couple of hours maximum. That makes a big difference.

From their perspective, it is super helpful because it allows them to get answers quickly and move faster. From my perspective, it was helpful because I understood the process and associated problems that occurred. That made a big difference in understanding their pain so they could appreciate my pain. Issues become more of a conversation at that point, as opposed to just working in our own silos.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of a network for independent insurance agencies. We provide business services and technology solutions that help independent insurance agencies grow. When an agency becomes a member of our network, they get access to insurance markets as well as a whole suite of business services and tools. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with MindSea?

We wanted to give insurance agency owners access to their business information at the tip of their fingers. For example, our tools would help them understand what happened to their business yesterday, which clients they needed to be concerned about today, and where their additional revenue opportunities were. 

We turned to MindSea to help us build a mobile solution that addressed those questions and more.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

MindSea developed a mobile app that provided insurance agency owners insights around their business so that they could take action. It was a cross-platform solution built using React Native. Our engineers did the backend while theirs worked on the frontend.

One of our concerns around mobile app development was adoption — we wanted to make sure that we were building something that our users wanted. Insurance agents aren’t the most tech-savvy population, so we needed to make sure that our mobile solution would be something that they’d actually want to use.

Initially, MindSea helped us understand what the feature set would need to look like. I brought some sketches that I’d brainstormed with some others in the company, working with their team to bring them to life. They did a bunch of workshops to explore user personas, looked at what our users cared about and how that varied across the audience, and then started talking about features.

All of this culminated into a feature-value matrix that plotted all of our ideas out. This helped us understand the value that our solution would have for our users, and it became a really good foundation for our product roadmap and MVP. 

What is the team composition? 

We had a designer who also ran the show as a project manager. She drove all of the meetings and made sure things stayed on track, but she also gathered requirements and translated them into designs. There was also a main developer who oversaw a team.

How did you come to work with MindSea?

I looked at five companies that came in through a mix of referrals, cold emails, and Clutch. I mostly wanted a partner that thought how we thought to meet us where we were. We knew our customers really well, so we didn’t need a giant deep-dive to learn about our customers. MindSea struck the right balance between analyzing our target users and respecting our institutional knowledge.

I’d also add that it was great to see them work through some of our initial technical questions like when we were choosing the right platform for our app. MindSea was the only company that I talked to that said they couldn’t be sure which platform was right for us until they fully understood our scope. That showed a lot of humility and trust in the process. 

How much have you invested with them?

We paid about $100,000 between the first meeting with MindSea and getting the app live in app stores.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in October 2019, and we’re still working with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It was really important for us to build an application that was beautiful, easy to use, and intuitive — something that users wanted to put their hands on. Our app is a data-intensive experience, which is hard to make easy to navigate. 

But, that’s what we got with MindSea. They took our ideas and solidified the UX design in the exact right direction for us. The team had great ideas around how to resolve complicated UX issues, and the end quality exceeded my expectations.

How did MindSea perform from a project management standpoint?

MindSea was really good about always hitting deadlines. They pushed the agenda forward to drive future development and were transparent about how things were trending.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Again, what set them apart was their ability to strike a balance between meeting us where we were and pushing us to adopt other best practices. We could see that manifest both in their agile process and the actual end product. 

During discussions around feature sets, they would work to understand why we needed a feature before gently pushing back to guide us toward a better mobile experience — even if we might’ve given something up in the process. It was a compelling, healthy way to think through problems.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t have a lot to say on this front.  

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Projects always work out well when both parties are clear and transparent. Just be honest and straightforward with what you need, even during tricky conversations. MindSea will do whatever they can to make that happen. If they can’t, they’ll explain why and help you work through a different solution.