SF AppWorks

Introduce your business and what you do there.

At the time of the project, I was the senior partner of an organization within a university’s business school. The organization contributes to projects that benefit the greater good of humanity.

What challenge were you trying to address with SF AppWorks?

We brought them in to build a cost-of-care calculator for Alzheimer’s patients.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They built the custom solution from scratch. The project was pretty complex. We were drawing from different databases to help users model different scenarios in figuring out the cost of providing a loved one with Alzheimer’s care. Data considered included geographic location, disease stage, and cost by zip code. A major portion of the engagement was devoted to optimizing user experience as well.

What is the team composition?

We worked with Darius (Head of Software Development), who had a team working behind the scenes. He also brought in a subcontractor who we also spoke to directly.

How did you come to work with SF AppWorks?

Someone on my team knew of Darius specifically and was confident that he would be able to handle the intricacies of the project. He's very personable, and his strategic nature made him a perfect fit for us.

How much have you invested with them?

I don’t remember the specific price, but it was somewhere between $50,000–$200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from May–November 2019.

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

Our client was extremely pleased with the solution they delivered. Internally, we were also happy with what they provided.

How did SF AppWorks perform from a project management standpoint?

They did a good job managing some churn on our end. They were responsive throughout our time together.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re incredibly creative and client-focused. They’ll do whatever they can to ensure they deliver the most optimal solution. Their strategic guidance was instrumental to us reaching our goals.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Darius is one of the smartest developers I’ve ever worked with.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of Moxie Method, a branding and design firm.

What challenge were you trying to address with SF AppWorks?

We wanted a partner to work on custom development projects with us.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have collaborated on a few projects, developing custom software for our clients. They’ve done websites and applications, customized to clients’ specifications. We generally brief them on the project and scope out the work and milestones.

What is the team composition?

We work with Andrew (CEO) and Darius (CTO). We’ve worked with their development and support team but the number of people varies per project.

How did you come to work with SF AppWorks?

I’ve known Andrew and Darius for several years, and I like the way they work.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $100,000–$200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together around January 2014, and our work is ongoing.

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

They are flexible, and I like the way they work. They have good ideas; it’s a great match for our needs. They work as an extension of our team, and our clients have never had any problems with their work.

How did SF AppWorks perform from a project management standpoint?

We have meetings and use various tools, depending on the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are skilled, fast-paced , and trustworthy.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not really. I wish they worked on some of the smaller projects with us.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Come to them with a platform and end goal in mind, but also listen to their ideas and suggestions.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of engineering at BigHealth. We build digital therapeutics. These are software solutions to behavioral health problems focused on the treatment of poor sleep and anxiety. We take traditional evidence-based treatments that are used in person and translate them into something that can be delivered digitally. We have two applications that are self-guided to people who are suffering from those conditions.

What challenge were you trying to address with SF AppWorks?

We were facing a conversion problem at the top of our funnel for users. Essentially, we wanted to dramatically change the experience for users as they are onboarded into our program. They come in and answer a series of questions about what’s troubling them in their sleep or behaviors.

Then, we put them into the program based on their responses. We were losing a lot of folks through this process. We wanted to rebuild that part of the experience but didn’t have the resources to do it in-house. That’s why we brought on SF AppWorks.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They took an existing part of the product, particularly the onboarding questionnaire piece, and rebuilt it from the ground up. SF AppWorks built the product with the particular technology constraints that we put in place at the beginning of the project. We want it to be compatible with our technology stack and some of the internal frameworks we had built. It was really important to us to find a partner who was comfortable with taking on that challenge. The goal was to ultimately hand it off to internal resources once the project was completed.

The first part of the process was to look in-depth at the existing on-market version of the product they were rebuilding. Then, they developed a set of technical requirements and capabilities we wanted from this new iteration of that part of the system. We broke down the rebuild of it into four big milestones. The SF AppWorks team took those requirements. Our team traveled to their offices in Romania and did some live sessions to handle that initial work.

Together, we came up with a work plan and set of estimates for everything we wanted to do, ahead of the launch of the new version. It was a period of about four months from that initial set of meetings to the launch of the new version. Once we were aligned on the technologies and major technical design decisions, their team went about building things out.

We met about twice a week to check in on progress and break down the overall milestones into two-week sprints in order to track how we were doing against the plan. Once that initial development was completed and launched to our customers successfully, we kept the SF AppWorks team on to continue to maintain the product because we didn’t have internal resources to support a handoff.

They ultimately ended up continuing to support it for about two years after the initial build-out. We continued to work in the same way — two check-ins a week and two-week sprints with deployments at the end of those

What is the team composition?

At the beginning of the project, we worked with a large part of their team including their CTO. We had a dedicated project manager as well as 4–6 software developers.

How did you come to work with SF AppWorks?

I posted on LinkedIn, and they reached out to me. Ultimately, we chose them over their competitors. We did an exercise at the beginning of the project where we sent over some requirements to all of the agencies we were considering. One week later, we followed up to discuss how they’d approach solving some of the technical problems.

In that session, SF AppWorks provided a clear signal that they could effectively tackle the technical problems that we were facing. Their team also had more flexibility of resources than their competitors, which was important to us at the time. We had hard deadlines so we needed some assurances that they’d be able to scale resource if we were running behind.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested between $500,000–$700,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The initial project started in August 2018 and wrapped up in December 2018. We continued to engage with them for ongoing maintenance and improvements through January 2021.

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

In terms of the overall success of the project, SF AppWorks delivered a first version that we were able to launch within the specified timeframe. The work they did for us, moved our time to launch new customers from a three-month process to a one-hour process of nontechnical resource setup. It allowed us to serve a very high-scale launch period that immediately followed the launch of the work they did. There was a roughly 5x–10x greater throughput before and after.

How did SF AppWorks perform from a project management standpoint?

They were great in terms of collaboration and working within our processes. We work in a regulated space so there’s a lot of extra documentation and things of that nature. SF AppWorks was always willing to adapt their working practices to work with the rest of our organization. The majority of the work was on time or within tolerances that I’d expect from any development team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were extremely adaptable both in terms of the technology process and communications. Their team was very comfortable and flexible in effectively aligning to our needs as a customer.

Are there any areas they could improve?

In terms of the second phase of the ongoing maintenance, there could be some improvements in terms of code quality and technical capabilities of the team.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear and specific as possible about what you need to be accomplished at the beginning of the project. Set clear expectations while allowing them to work in the style to which they’re comfortable. While they are adaptable, they do have in-house knowledge of development practices and things like that. If you don’t need them to interact with your larger team, letting them do their thing will allow you to ultimately see successful results.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Insidesource is a global commercial furniture dealership specializing in workplace strategy and design for a broad spectrum of corporate and tech clientele. My colleague, Kayte (Product + Experience Lead), and I (Creative Strategy Director) spearhead innovation through the lens of client-tailored workplace services and products.

For what projects/services did your company hire SF AppWorks?

Our team enlisted SF AppWorks to assist with planning and developing a web-based platform to solve a specific project need. We began with a prototyping process called a "design sprint" from which we were able to organize our information and goals, then design and test a working prototype with real end-users. In addition to providing a means to explore the "what" (defining what the web platform might be), the SF AppWorks team was instrumental in helping our team address the "why" and connect our ideas/questions to real-world solutions.

What were your goals for this project?

Through our work with SF AppWorks, our goal was to create a platform to elevate and simplify the client experience for our clientele. We identified a need to connect end-users to our products and services in a unique way that allowed for autonomy, transparency, and reliability.

How did you select SF AppWorks?

SF AppWorks came highly referred by mutual industry contacts.

Describe the project in detail.

Our team worked closely with SF AppWorks for an initial 5-day design sprint, facilitated by Andrew Greenstein (CEO of SF AppWorks). The results of the sprint were simultaneously captured in a working prototype created by the SF AppWorks design team, which was then used to conduct end-user tests for real time feedback. The prototype, still a work in progress, will now be used to inform next steps towards a final solution.

What was the team composition?

Our Insidesource team was comprised of three primary members with approximately ten additional internal "experts" brought in for a specific stage of the design sprint process. The SF AppWorks team was comprised of members representing product, design and development.

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

Working with SF AppWorks enabled us to solve for an initial client need towards streamlining business processes and simplifying the end user experience. What we discovered through this process, more importantly, is a bigger idea that we believe will not only elevate the client experience but serve to improve certain components of how our industry does business.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow between our respective teams was extremely hands on and consistent, resulting in a seamless execution of the vision.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Our team was thoroughly impressed with the consultative nature of the design sprint. The facilitator's leadership was thoughtful, insightful and informative and we felt completely understood throughout the entire process. Our focus as a company is all about the client experience and setting those expectations high...we can't say enough about our own wonderful experiences as an SF AppWorks client and greatly look forward to continuing the partnership.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the head of technology for AARP’s Life Reimagined Division.

What challenge were you trying to address with SF AppWorks?

We hired them for ongoing development services.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We needed to do some building of both web and mobile apps for Life Reimagined.

What is the team composition?

We worked with developers, project managers, and a QA tester.

How did you come to work with SF AppWorks?

I had been working with the CTO several years before that on different AARP projects. He had put together a capable team.

How much have you invested with them?

Throughout the engagement, we spent $4.5 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from July 2010 until we shut down in February 2017.

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

I was very impressed with the quality. First of all, nobody has everything perfect, but their team was humble enough to say that they weren’t going to get everything right all the time. They put QA testers on the job to ensure the work would be as high-quality as possible.

When they made mistakes, they didn’t try and sugarcoat anything. Overall, they were highly effective. They also paid for their people to train and learn new software development principles and technologies.

How did SF AppWorks perform from a project management standpoint?

They delivered effective project management with efficient project managers and scrum folks. Several members of their team were based in Romania, which is a six-hour time difference. They were willing to stay up late working and take the time to have calls with us. Their English was also very good.

If there was a cost overrun or delay or a developer that wasn’t able to produce, they were straightforward with us. We used Jira and Skype extensively for communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The essential ingredients of a successful engagement working with a group that’s both offshore and onshore are their ability to bridge the gap of time and culture. SF AppWorks did both of those effectively. When I got up at 6 am, the Romanian team would be in full swing. That’s a benefit, but only because all of the teams talked regularly.

SF AppWorks came up with good solutions, taking responsibility for their work. They allowed for a good mix of cost, timeliness, and quality. If we said we wanted something right away, they would say it’s either not going to be the best quality, or it’s going to cost more. They were very upfront.

Are there any areas they could improve?

If we wanted something done quickly, they weren’t that capable. It wasn’t a big group that they could draw from or pull from another project. But that was also a benefit because they never took our people away. They were always focused, and there was almost no attrition of employees.

It was a double-edged sword. It was a little bit frustrating at times, but it was a solid business choice to have people just dedicated to us. Once they train them, their people don’t leave to go to other projects.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Somebody who might work with SF AppWorks must have a desire or need for something innovative. They’re great at that. They spend a lot of time training their people. If they can foster that and recognize that, it’s tremendous. Their team learns a lot through hackathons.

If somebody is a potential client that wants to work with a large and centered engagement, it’s not SF AppWorks. But that’s a good thing because there are a lot of those out there.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a senior living housing and services provider. We have eight affordable communities and four life planned communities in the Bay Area. We serve and support over 10,000 seniors. I’m the VP of IT.

What challenge were you trying to address with SF AppWorks?

Our original use case was a workflow problem related to processing invoices. We’ve got some unique challenges because of the number of general ledger codes we have in our company. We took the plunge and decided to have our own solution developed.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had a pretty good idea of what we wanted as a final product and a good sense of what our business requirements were. We were able to provide them with a pretty detailed documentation upfront.

SF AppWorks created an accounts payable invoice processing solution that included AI to increase coding accuracy and processing efficiency. It included optical character recognition to improve our ability to scan multiple documents at the same time. It integrated with our existing general ledger system.

I provided a full set of wireframes. It was SQL backend, and the frontend was done in PHP and JavaScript.

What is the team composition?

We had two backend developers, one frontend UI developer, one QA, and one project manager. Our main point of contact was Lucian (Full Stack Developer).

How did you come to work with SF AppWorks?

We found them through a web search. We thought they were the best fit based on past projects with companies familiar in our industry. That experience gave us the confidence to choose them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement with SF AppWorks started in April 2017.

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

We had a great experience working with SF AppWorks from start to finish. The project was done in a professional manner and finished on time.

We ended up with a product that was better than we expected. We could’ve spent $80,000 a year on an off-the-shelf project that wasn’t ideally suited to our needs. By developing our own with SF AppWorks, we found something that perfectly fit our needs and broke our ROI within two and a half years.

Now, we’re currently working with them on a different project.

How did SF AppWorks perform from a project management standpoint?

Their communication was very impressive. Working with an organization that has developers overseas is always challenging. The team excels in their responsiveness. They provide clear and good documentation, and the meetings we have run well. We used Jira as our main portal.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Communication is what sticks out to me. Their QA process was also noteworthy. They tackled most of the bugs and issues before it even reached our testers. That made rollout so much smoother.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Time differences can be a challenge. It would be nice to have 24/7 access.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Come in with clearly defined business requirements and wireframes, if you have them. It would help to get things going and getting the projects completed on time if you have those things prepared.