Mobiversal

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the founder and CEO of Vibendo, a music streaming and social media app.

For what projects/services did your company hire Mobiversal?

After releasing the web app with a separate development team, we wanted to find a different partner to develop the Android app.

What were your goals for this project?

We set out to quickly and affordably develop an Android app. It couldn’t be an exact copy of the web app, however. We wanted it to have additional features and a new UI and design.

How did you select this vendor?

One of our other development partners introduced us to them. Their quote fit our tight budget perfectly, and we loved their experience and past projects. We decided to engage them after a great first call with their whole team.

Describe the project in detail.

They started by producing wireframes, which I loved, and then delivered a first build, which blew my mind even more. Initially, the development team who recommended them to us acted as our go-between, but we were losing time and money so I took over the cooperation. After that, Mobiversal’s team took off. They understood the project incredibly well.

What was the team composition?

I was mainly in contact with the project manager, Vlad (Partner, Mobiversal), though I also spoke with a designer, Razvan (Deputy Project Manager, Mobiversal) a lot initially. Obed (Full-Stack Web Developer, Mobiversal) and Zoltan (Android Developer, Mobiversal) handled the coding and development process. In total, 4–6 people worked on the project.

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

We launched an amazingly complex app in three months facing a very tight budget. Four week’s post-launch, we’ve seen almost 3,000 downloads and earned a user rating of nearly 4.9. Both users and clients featured on the app (musicians and music labels) love it, which will only attract more labels and artists.

Logistically, the release was smooth. We didn’t face any issues, save for a few small bugs and crashes that were solved within the week. It’s been stable since then, and we’re continuing to work on improvements and new features in-house.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Vlad managed the project perfectly. I always felt confident we would achieve our goals. We had daily summaries and weekly calls, along with weekly sprint updates where we discussed what the following week’s goals would be. I had a clear understanding of our status at every point in the development. They also responded to us quickly, often within the hour, or at least within 12 hours if it was a complicated issue.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

As a startup founder, you dream of finding people as committed to your idea as you are, people that break from the 9–5 mentality to achieve incredible results. I’ve found those people at Mobiversal. Their commitment, creativity, and character are difficult to express in words, so I’ll just say that I’m incredibly thankful for their team and couldn’t imagine finding a better one.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Looking back, I wouldn’t have used a go-between initially. Working directly with the vendor is better for the relationship.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a co-founder of Salusfin Ltd, a technology provider of Energy management and Security solutions. We innovate new, secure, and affordable internet of things (IoT)-based solutions.

For what projects/services did your company hire Mobiversal?

We were looking for partners that could help us to build an MVP application for a smart home solution focused on security and safety.

What were your goals for this project?

For the first project, we wanted to seek market acceptance for our smart home idea and to gather feedback from our pilot customers.

How did you select this vendor?

We interviewed around seven companies and received good, well-defined proposals from three of them. We selected Mobiversal based on their technical capability, willingness to learn in new areas, and the ease of communication we had with the team.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

For the initial delivery, we provided the wireframes and concepts to them. For the next release, we made a major change and moved the UI design to within their remit too. We've been able to work in sprints and follow an agile approach.

What was the team composition?

Initially, the team consisted of a project manager, senior developers for Android and iOS, and a testing team. In the current team, we have a project manager and one senior developer that handles both our apps, as well as a testing team.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

It's been a success with great feedback from the users. We decided to continue the cooperation and to build the next product with a focus on energy management. The maintenance releases have ensured the quality stays good.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

From the start, we had an experienced project manager who was our central contact throughout the project. We have received updates regularly and it's fun working with their team. We're learning a lot from each other.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Initially, we had several technical discussions to ensure we were on the same page and that the supplier could deliver. It's been very easy to work with them from abroad. They assigned their CTO to discussions with our team and we had confidence that they would be able to deliver the goods.

Are there any areas where they can improve?

In one phase we had an extremely tight deadline and had to have a couple of extra discussions to make the project manager aware of our situation. They took immediate action and nominated an extra resource to help the project manager. The delivery was done on time, with all features included.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder of a mobile scavenger hunt application.

For what projects/services did your company hire Mobiversal?

We needed help with the design and development of the platform.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to build a functioning and engaging app that connects users through a fun and unique gaming platform.

How did you select this vendor?

I found Mobiversal online and reached out after reviewing the quality of their past work and their price. I was initially hesitant to work with a company outside of the United States, but I felt reassured by their professional and eager approach to our partnership.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

Mobiversal first helped us plan the scope of the project. We held a welcoming call to conceptualize the idea and write out the specifications necessary to reflect our vision. With that in mind, the team started the design and development stages of the app.

What was the team composition?

We worked with the project manager, a business analyst, and a team of their designers and developers. The business analyst took our ideas and relayed them to the design team. Once the design team finished, the project manager brought them to the development team. The system is smooth and efficient.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

They accurately replicated our vision for the app and skillfully developed the desired functionalities. The platform is complete with tools to create multiple scavenger hunts and a marketplace to share games and support revenue.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The project was efficiently organized and scheduled. The project manager effectively handled all the moving parts of the project to assure it ran smoothly. We planned a couple calls a month to assess the progress of the project and brainstorm strategies to attract additional users and boost incoming revenue.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I was very happy with their quality of work and the cost of their services. I shopped my idea around to a few companies before choosing Mobiversal, and most either wanted a ridiculous price or didn’t have the proper resources to facilitate the workload.

Are there any areas where they can improve?

Mobiversal is perfect if you want to build a quality product at a reasonable cost.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the CEO of Smartbridge AG. We manage Staffcloud, which is a digital platform designed to help companies manage their flexible staff.

For what projects/services did your company hire Mobiversal?

We needed an iOS and Android compatible app for our platform.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to develop a minimum viable product (MVP) and gradually extend its capabilities. We needed a strong foundation to prevent any necessary refactoring rounds when making future additions.

How did you select this vendor?

We were looking for agencies local tour standing development partner in Romania. We wanted to guarantee a good flow of communication between their respective teams. Following an internet search, I spoke with the owner of Mobiversal and we set up a test project. Those results led us to partner with them for the larger project.

Describe the project in detail.

The Mobiversal team developed iOS and Android compatible apps that enable customers to manage staff-planning and tracking aspects of their projects. They programmed features that prompt users to enter personal data, available hours, and requested expenses. There is also a channel that allows managers to communicate with their employees through the app. They helped release the MVP and are now tracking its progress.

What was the team composition?

We worked with two iOS developers and two Android developers.

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

The MVP has reached about 4,000 users and with the full-product rollout, we expect that number to grow to more than 60,000. The initial app has been running smoothly and we haven’t experienced any scalability issues.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We manage the project through Jira. The workflow is extremely collaborative, transparent, and efficient.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Mobiversal remained composed during the critical phases of the project. They make bug fixes and improvements as quickly as possible.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Mobiversal should try to build an automated testing environment. This could help improve app quality on different phone models and operative systems.

Please describe your company.

PhantomAlert is the world’s leader in gathering points of interest for safety and enforcement locations. We have a crowdsourcing tool that maps out all the red light cameras, speed cameras, speed traps, dangerous intersections, dangerous roads, and dangerous curves. The tool also identifies school zones and severe weather. All that information is communicated through our apps or database to smartphone users and GPS users, to help them drive safely and efficiently. We have more than 2 million users, and every day we help someone avoid a ticket. It’s like putting money back in their pockets, especially with the red light cameras. Washington, D.C., is one of our biggest markets.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I’m the founder and CEO.

What was your goal for working with Mobiversal?

We found Mobiversal after an exhaustive search for qualified app developers, Web developers, and engineer, and they fit the bill.

Please describe the scope of their work.

Their job was to design our website, backend systems, and our apps. It was a major undertaking. Mobiversal did everything from A to Z. Mobiversal has some great developers and engineers, and they were responsible for developing, designing, and building the app for iOS and Android smartphones. These were not simple apps; they are very complicated. GPS navigation and real-time tracking of users, with the ability to report points of interest and other users. There is real-time communication between many users at the same time.

What was your process for selecting Mobiversal to work with?

We checked out their resume. There are a lot of fake resumes out there with people who puff up their qualifications. They don’t have any portfolios to back up what they said. For us, it was very important to find somebody who had in-depth experience in building navigation apps. They could be building games, magazine apps, and things like that. However, it’s totally different than building a navigation app that has to communicate with millions of drivers at the same time. The backend servers have to be robust, taking information from millions of smartphones, crunching the numbers, then disseminating the alerts back to whoever is in the right place.

It’s very complicated, and you need a PTO to put that all together. You must think it out, design it, wireframe it, do flow charts, build the apps and the back end, and test many times. Mobiversal was very good at that.

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

The project took a couple of years and cost a couple of hundred thousand dollars.

When was the latest milestone completed for that work?

The work is still ongoing, which is the beauty and the problem with developing apps. You always keep generating. You need to work with people that will be around. You might find some who are cheap who will give you one app and the next thing you know, iOS goes from Version 5 to Version 7, and you have to update the app. If they’re not around, you’re in trouble. You’d have to hire a new team who has to go back and learn everything that was done before. That’s a waste of time, and they may not understand what was done, and they’ll come back and recommend that they redo everything again.

Picking the right developer, making sure they’re qualified and that they would be around for a very long time is essential. It’s very important, and that’s what Mobiversal did for us. We’re very lucky that we found them because this work is not easy, and with the wrong team, you could lose money and time. If you’re a small business, you could lose your company.

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

When we started with Mobiversal, we had rudimentary iPhone and Android apps. They came in and saw what we had. They understood our vision, and they revamped everything. Not only did they revamp the apps, but the most important part is the backend system. That is where all the data is collected from the users in real time, crunched, and sent back to the people who are in the right areas, giving them correct and timely alerts. In our business, alerts have to be timely. If we make a mistake, or if we don’t get the alerts in time, somebody will get a ticket or have an accident, and that’s bad for business.

The system has to be tested thoroughly. When we first started using them, the backend system was very clunky and filled with spaghetti code; everything was duct-taped. They looked at it and put all that aside. They built it from scratch in a brand new way, with a better vision and a solid foundation. They took us from about 100,000 users to supporting more than 2 million users. Customer satisfaction has been very good. They were very good at listening to the customers, noticing what people had problems with, and practically fixing everything as they went.

Do you feel you made the right decision to develop on iOS and Android?

Yes. If you want to do apps, you have to do Android and iOS. There’s no other way now. Of course, there is BlackBerry and Windows. BlackBerry is dying, and we didn’t get along with Windows because of some issues we had with four senators who are against our product. They sent a letter to Apple, Google, and BlackBerry. Apple and Google said they had to review it and make a decision based on the merits of this company. They gave us a chance to explain ourselves and justify our presence. On the other hand, Blackberry yanked us off the market without asking us any questions.

Android is a must, and we also do some GPS navigation apps. We had to double up for Garmin, TomTom, and Magellan. We licensed our database to a lot of other mapmakers, so we have to have an API, and give our data to these mapmakers and developers. They also helped us build our API.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

The most important thing is that they deliver. Secondly, they know what they’re doing. The third thing is that they will work with you, understand your mission, and they have enough people there who are business developers, programmers, and debuggers. They have the whole team in-house to work on your project. They just don’t build something, they make it work. If it doesn’t work for the customer, just because you built it, it doesn’t mean they’ll come.

That’s what Mobiversal does; they make sure it works. They’re affordable. If I were to develop my apps here in the U.S., it would cost twice as much. You want to hire somebody who’s going to be around. You need to iterate with your project, program, business, and apps, and you need the person who looked at it the first time to be the person who keep improving it at a reasonable price. Bringing in other people or a new team is very expensive.

I’m a small business, and we live and die by how we spend our money. We’re not allowed to waste even a penny. A penny saved is a penny earned. The wrong developer can destroy you. I’m happy with Mobiversal.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

Yes, I wish they’d stop taking other clients. I would like to have them for myself. Whoever is going to hire them, is going to be very happy. These are qualified people, and they’ll tell you the truth. They won’t promise you everything and then nickel and dime you to death. They know how to manage expectations; they know how to write up the project, and they know how to stick to it.

Can you provide some background information on your company?

Actually, it's only me. I have started my own entrepreneurship of mobile apps and games, and this is actually my first one. I'm about to create a few more, and I had a very positive experience with Mobiversal.

I was looking for a company that will create a quality game for me. I invented this game for the iOS market, and later I'll plan to import it to Android as well. It's a game that I created initially on the Sun Java platform with a friend, and he developed it with C++. When I wanted to import it to Mobiversal to iOS, it didn’t have enough capability to do that, so I had to search for a different solution. That's how I searched for another development company, and I stumbled upon Mobiversal.

What made Mobiversal stand out compared to the other companies?

The first thing that gave them a big advantage was amazing communication skills, which means they are very prompt to reply to emails. Their English is amazing. I was mainly dealing with Alin, the manager, that's who I signed the contract with, and he directed us to a guy, very reliable, a man that stands behind his word, which is very important for me.

Because while you're searching for an offshore solution, you don't know exactly who you're dealing with, so you always have this fear that you might end up with a bad partner, or with a bad company. The kind that does not deliver the quality you're looking for, not be able to stand behind their timeframes that they had promised, all these kinds of things like that. With Alin and his company, I really felt confident that I have a partner. I have somebody that really takes care of my interest, and the success of my product is also part of their success. That's what's I was looking for, this kind of attitude. That was the first thing.

Then, I saw they are very serious. I saw their portfolio, I saw their skills, and that they know what they're doing. They're not overpromising or underdelivering. But, they actually are very modest and, on the other hand, they're very skillful.

Finally, of course, was the budget. This company situated in Romania, and they're not the cheapest, but definitely not the priciest, and that was another big plus toward them.

How long ago was the project completed?

It was last year. We aired it on the Expo around April 2011, and they took around four months to create from the beginning to end.

Can you give a general cost estimate for the project?

It had a few phases. So, the first phase that was live initially cost me around $6,500. Since then, we had a few revisions, and we are about to upload a very big revision, a total redo of the game in a week or two. All in all, including the last revision, I'd say this project cost me around $10,000 or $11,000.

How happy are you with the results?

Very happy. The results are a topnotch, high-quality game, I think that it can compete with the big names. The thing is that it's very important to test the product to make certain there are no bugs, no crashes, and everything runs smooth. Of course, there were many iterations until we came to a product that they're satisfied with, but they're very responsive and willing to go the extra mile to make me satisfied with the project.

Compared to other developers that you've worked with, do you find anything special or unique about Mobiversal?

We usually have this term called “Big Head.” “Big Head” means somebody who is overdelivering, was not only doing what you asked them to do, but also gives his input and his ideas and solution to the work desk.

So, this is something I can say about Mobiversal. Sometimes, they will suggest something, and they would say, "Listen, why don't we do something differently?" and actually bring up a better solution than I initially brought to the table. I really appreciate this kind of attitude that always takes advantage of the synergy between me and the contractor toward a better product eventually.

Looking back on the project, is there anything you'd do differently a second time around, or think that Mobiversal could improve upon?

Nothing to do with them. I made my own mistakes marketing-wise or feature-wise. I put too much effort on a few features, which didn’t work out and stuff like that, but that doesn’t have to do anything with Mobiversal.

With them, I think the only thing I would do is maybe to penalize them for not delivering on time because I didn’t do that and I sometimes had to be really bossy with them. Like, "Hey, come on, we got one week. I want the product to be live on time." So, if I've listed penalties in the agreement and the initial contract, things would have run better timeframe-wise.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the CEO of a mobile marketing app that matches users with bars and restaurants.

For what projects/services did your company hire Mobiversal?

I needed help with mobile app development.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was to launch the app and start onboarding new users.

How did you select this vendor?

My team interviewed several shops.

Describe the project in detail.

Mobiversal created our minimal viable product. They continue to add features.

What was the team composition?

I’ve worked with a project manager and several developers.

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

We have a great app that looks good and simply works.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Working with them is easy. We communicate over the phone and through email. They’ve delivered on time and within budget.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They provide great service and end results.