NOVVUM

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the founder of College Path, a two-person company that provides college admissions advice to middle and high school students and their parents in preparation for the college admissions process.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with NOVVUM?

With Novvum, we were trying to figure out how to create a product that takes human interactions, that are very expensive for people to acquire, and open it to many more people while still providing the same great advice that we're used to giving in person.

I wanted people to understand my business and to create something that was efficient but engaging.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They were responsible for creating a software program that is transforming our business from person-to-person interactions to a program that provides some of the advice.

They also help with search engine management and search engine optimization.

Together we built a program that's is the first virtual advisor of college admissions advice. They created a program that delivers custom admissions information to subscribers based on their own unique interests and goals. They used my existing content to create a program that guides students and parents through the admissions process.

What is the team dynamic?

I worked with a team of approximately four Novvum staff. We would communicate either in person or over the phone for one extended conversation per week with e-mail, text or phone call support as well.

Novvum created the team but they worked with me to make sure that it was a good fit.

How did you come to work with Novvum?

I started from scratch with them.

I scoured the web. We are both located in Orange County, California, so that's how I came to know them. I interviewed probably a dozen development firms throughout the world and ultimately decided to work with Novvum because they understood my business and what I was trying to accomplish. That meant a lot to me.

It was hard to find someone that I could trust apart from them and that understood what I was trying to create for the end user. They really had an appreciation for the user as the driver of success for this product. I can't say how appreciative I am for that perspective

How much have you invested with them?

Approximately $25,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

It’ll be December through July 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our feedback on the user interface has been extremely positive. I cannot stress that enough, that the feedback has been very positive.

How did NOVVUM perform from a project management standpoint?

They were satisfactory. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I think it was their ability to get to the purpose of why we're building a product and that's I think their greatest skill, that they understand the business.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, at this point, I'm satisfied with the process.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a co-founder of OpenCastings, an app that allows actors and actresses to self-tape and self-submit their audition tapes using iPhones. We are a startup in the film, media, and television markets. Our target market customers are performers and casting directors. We have 10 people in the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Novvum?

We originally had a broken product in the marketplace. It was built in a framework that we were excited about and had invested a lot of money in. The original challenge was, “Can you get this thing that is broken working again?”

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Novvum had to go into the codebase of the original product and make some adjustments. Their first goal was to fix the existing product. That required them to have a fairly sophisticated knowledge of the codebase along with understanding our business case and business goal. They built patches we never anticipated in the first place because the original team did not do a very good job.

As we developed as a company, we realized that we had the wrong target market and pivoted away from HR and our original concept of video interviewing. We developed a new vision for the product. Novvum developed it based on the old product, but completely rebuilt. They are now working with React to build our MVP as an iPhone app. It will also be available on Android. Novvum also built a responsive web app for casting directors.

Novvum’s involvement has many facets. One would be platform reliability and consulting for our already existing platform. Another is bug fixes and performance improvements of the existing platform. After we pivoted, we worked together in product planning by outlining a scope of work. We retained them on an ongoing basis to begin to build these features we had scoped out in a very Lean and Agile way. Novvum developed our tech stack and its strategy, including our infrastructure, managing the backend and developing the front-end. We provided wireframes, but when where there are gaps in our product, they fill those gaps themselves. They are helping us through the process of customer development right now.

Our core value-creating activity is self-taping, and that happens with the iPhone camera. Raj and Rohit built a Native React component that allows for video capture, which is pretty straightforward on the iPhone, as well as review and redo. This allows the user to capture video, play it back before uploading it to our Amazon database, and then decide whether or not they want to submit or redo an audition. Since there are no Native React components that can do this, they had to build it from scratch. We’re one of the only companies now on the market that has that specific feature for React. Rohit built a web app that allows casting directors to review the auditions submitted for each production. It’s a split screen where half the screen is headshots that have come in and the other half populates with the video audition for that person as you click on each headshot. If you get 50 submissions per role, you can watch all the video auditions individually as you click on headshots. Novvum also built actor profiles similar to IMDb for the Native experience, but we have not pushed that codebase live yet.

How did you come to work with Novvum?

We shared an office wall with Novvum for months and were on informal terms with each other on a daily basis. As happens in co-working spaces, we talked about our projects and they wanted to take a look. Out of all the people that we interviewed, I could tell they had a legitimate interest in our product and not saying that only to get our business. They were also honest and transparent in their pricing.

How much have you invested with Novvum?

We have spent roughly $50,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

They became formalized in the project last September 15. We are increasing our business relationship with them. We recently implemented a process called macroplanning regarding organizational priorities. I see the beginnings of a team forming between us. We are encouraging some more broad strategic conversations with them relative to the future of their company.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The metrics I would use to judge my satisfaction with them is development velocity—how many days it takes to get work done. I have been developing software as a project manager for about 8 years, and their development velocity is so high. It is awesome. The turnaround time is in days, not weeks, which is amazing. Raj will build things that we never even asked for because it improves the product. It is faster than what I have ever had before, which is nice. Raj does a good job of being proactive. Sometimes, he fills the gaps in our product better than if we would have offered him our solutions. Anytime there is a bug, Raj fixes it usually within a day. It’s great that he built things in React since it is a straightforward framework that also works for Android. They have a surprisingly keen eye for design as engineers and we discuss our design influences. They will go to IMDb, Workpop, or other competitors to use them as a guide if we have not already provided mockups of what we want. We are trying to convince these guys to quit their agency and come work with us full-time because they are so good.

How did Novvum perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is something that we are pretty good at. One of the things that their principal has done for us is force us to take a strong look at leading startup mentality as it relates to project management and product management. As to the project management process, we review all the high-priority open items every Monday. Anything that is not prioritized or in the backlog is reassessed. We do daily wrap-ups Monday and Tuesday to make sure we are on the right track for the week. On Friday, we have what we call "stand down," which is a review of what we accomplished in the week.

What did you find most impressive about Novvum?

Novvum is reasonably priced and has a fair pricing system. They are honest. They are gifted engineers and are outperforming in that regard. The majority of the people I have worked with are a bit shifty and boisterous on what they can actually do, but Novvum is the opposite. They never overpromise and are always able to deliver on what they say they can do. I appreciate the fact that they believe in the product. They had a conversation with us in the very beginning saying, “We don’t take all the clients who approach us. We only take clients who we believe in.”

Are there any areas Novvum could improve?

They should consider growing their team. I do not know how they would handle scaling up their service to us.