Sneakers Apps

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of a travel platform. We offer an AI solution to help travelers plan their day based on real-time data.

What challenge were you trying to address with The Sneakers Agency?

We engaged The Sneakers Agency for iOS development.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Sneakers Agency built out our platform as a consumer-facing iOS app. They worked with our internal developers to implement our existing backend infrastructure in the new app. The team then created the entire frontend based on our designs.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with five people. 

How did you come to work with The Sneakers Agency?

I worked with Chris (Founder and CEO, The Sneakers Agency) when I was at my last startup, and I loved the experience. When he started his own company, I reached out to him for this project because I wanted to work with his team again.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2018, and the project is ongoing.

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

Our product has launched to the market. We’ve only been live in the App Store for two weeks, but we’ve already been featured on the store and written up on different media site. We’re happy with the app’s reception and the project’s success so far.

How did The Sneakers Agency perform from a project management standpoint?

I wouldn’t say project management is The Sneakers Agency’s strongest suit. We have to do a lot of the management ourselves, but that’s our preferred mode of working. We want to have hands-on control of the team instead of letting them manage everything. We work with The Sneakers Agency in two-week sprints, and we’ve hit every goal so far.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I love working with Chris. I think he leads an incredible development team. The Sneakers Agency charges great rates for their in-depth experience in iOS development. The team can scale up or down depending on our needs; we can bring on additional people when we have to move faster, and we can reduce resources when we have to slow down and make decisions. We appreciate their flexibility. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of anything. I think they’ve been great.

Any advice for potential customers?

As with every development team, you should know exactly what you want The Sneakers Agency to build before hiring them. Plan ahead and be very explicit in your instructions.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the CEO of Lifehack Labs, a software development firm that focuses on improving personal productivity.

For what projects/services did your company hire The Sneakers Agency?

We hired Sneakers to fix a mobile app created by a previous developer, rebuilding it from the ground up. They have since been a reliable partner in maintaining the app.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted an app without bugs or issues that performed at a high level, with built-in tracking.

How did you select this vendor?

A friend referred them to me.

Describe the project in detail.

Sneakers provided full development and design after we worked together to define specifications. The app allows users to easily sort through their camera role, delete unwanted pictures, and mark their favorites with a simple swipe, like Tinder. It runs on a freemium model, where users upgrade for the ability to sort through more pictures and view them by month.

What was the team composition?

We worked with a team comprised of several design and development resources.

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

The app has garnered several hundred thousand downloads and produced close to $100,000 in revenue. Aside from a few, minor issues, it’s been stable.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

They’re efficient and easy to work with.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Chris (Founder, The Sneakers Agency) and his team are friendly and responsive. We’ve never had any issues, and they’re always willing to jump in and help wherever they can. Their work is fantastic.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, not that I’ve seen. I’ve been extremely happy with our relationship. They're crushing it.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of product for The Infatuation—we write professional restaurant reviews and guides. Our whole skew is that the reviews are situational and conditional. We acquired Zagat this year, and are ultimately going to be bringing it into a community-driven platform to help us scale and provide an excellent resource.

What challenge were you trying to address with The Sneakers Agency?

We didn’t have any internal iOS resources. That meant we were looking for someone to come in and own the iOS transition of the app from its existing infrastructure into the new infrastructure we were building.

What was the scope of their involvement?

When the transition began, we were working extremely closely with Sneakers. They essentially owned the rebuild and retooling to work with our infrastructure. They scoped everything out and acted as a real partner throughout the process.

When we acquired Zagat, we were given the app as a part of the acquisition. We had to remove certain features as part of decoupling from Google’s infrastructure, and we also had to rebuild almost all of the data pipelines that fed the app.

What is the team composition?

We worked closely with Chris (Founder, The Sneakers Agency). He did a lot of work on the project and also brought in one of his lead iOS engineers. The two of them ran the project.

How did you come to work with The Sneakers Agency?

I initially spoke to another iOS developer who I had worked with in the past. He was unable to do the work but recommended Sneakers to us. We met with them and found we had an upfront familiarity—we felt comfortable to bring them on board to own the entire iOS part of the project.

How much have you invested in them?

The cost was around $30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together on this project from March–August 2018. We continue to work with them for any maintenance as well as future iterations.

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

They were successful in rebuilding the app and getting it to launch. It was a pretty painless process and we’re very happy to get it out into the world.

We’re talking about bringing them on board to do some other work we have. We definitely feel comfortable having them take on a bigger workload.

How did The Sneakers Agency perform from a project management standpoint?

Chris was local to us in New York, so he would come by at least once a week for a catch-up meeting to go through any issues or feedback. It worked well. We embedded them into our existing project processes and managed the project using Slack and GitHub to ensure we worked closely together. It was pretty seamless and overall, I think it was a big success.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were very flexible at working into our process, which was a big success. Along the way, it felt clear that they were a good partner. We trusted that they were actually owning that process as there wasn’t a whole lot of oversight. I wouldn’t hesitate to work with them again because they took on the burden of the work and integrated into our own workflow.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything I wish had been different. When working with outside agencies, it can be hard to ensure that everyone is always on the exact same page. I don’t think that was a problem for them, especially given the nature of our project, which was well laid out.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It was helpful that we had access to the people working on the project and could put them in our own channel. Because Sneakers is a pretty small shop, we had the ability to work directly with them. Putting them in our Slack, our code management, and our project management programs allowed us to always understand where people were and where the work was, which was exactly what we wanted.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our agency provides staffing and recruiting solutions for consumer packaged goods industries. As the director of technology, I oversee our digital products and the accompanying data analytics.

What challenge were you trying to address with The Sneakers Agency?

We wanted to unite all of our job boards and sister companies on a single platform, so we needed help rebuilding our website to reflect our expansive brand.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Sneakers Agency used our existing wireframes to rebuild the website to our specifications. A majority of their work involved consolidating data from sister sites and importing the files on the main website. They also implemented new features, including a comprehensive admin dashboard, a blog, and a live-chat for customer support.

What is the team composition?

Their CTO was the liaison between our company and their development team. We initially worked with one senior developer, but we gained an architect and two junior developers towards the end of the project.  

How did you come to work with The Sneakers Agency?

Sneakers was an established partner before I came onboard. Familiarity and prior success were the most significant factors.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent a little more than $200,000 to rebuild the website.

What is the status of this engagement?

They worked on the website from April 2017 – February 2018, but we officially launched in November 2017.

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

We had various brands with distinct voices and we struggled to consolidate our brands into one website.

How did The Sneakers Agency perform from a project management standpoint?

We continuously added work to the scope, but their project manager was receptive to our revolving needs and prioritized tasks accordingly. Our teams used Trello and Slack to manage the timeline and communicate respectively.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Although we didn't have a fully conceptualized vision for the website, Sneakers focused on developing the main features so that we’d have a finished product before the launch.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They performed to our expectations given our budget and timeframe, but their work would have been more effective if our team had done more research before commissioning the project.  

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

This was my first time working directly with an agency and we did not set expectations for maintaining the website after launch. Eventually, we brought someone in-house to manage that.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the co-founder of the TradeMade iOS app.

For what projects/services did your company hire The Sneakers Agency?

Our initial development company failed to successfully build the app, so we hired The Sneakers Agency to fix bugs and improve the app’s functionality.

How did you select this vendor?

We researched several app development agencies in New York City. By far, Sneakers Agency was the best out of the 5–7 we contacted.

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

We tasked them with fixing core features and providing general feedback about the UI/UX. They made several changes, including fixing the internal chat functionality, installing and configuring key analytics, and implementing tracking. Aside from improving the app’s UI/UX, they also provided development consultation and walked us through our backend framework.

What was the team composition?

We worked with their CEO and a few of their developers.

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

They delivered and then some. Now, the app functions exactly how we imagined it. The bug fixes and dev solutions were integrated perfectly and ahead of schedule. They even tested the app and removed the burden of QA, which other agencies didn't offer. Overall, it was an excellent experience.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Their team was skilled in all frontend and backend iOS languages. There was never an issue of whether or not a problem could be solved.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Everyone was incredibly talented and communicated perfectly. Their care and attention were impressive. Once you know a team is capable of doing the dev work, genuine attention is all you can ask for, and they delivered.

Are there any areas where they can improve?

None.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm one of the founders of a small retail bakery with four locations in New York City and on Long Island. We've been in business for almost 25 years.

What challenge were you trying to address with The Sneakers Agency?

We were being sued for Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) issues that the company that originally built our website were unable to fix. We were looking for a vendor that could update our site according to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Sneakers Agency updated and relaunched our website on the Magento Enterprise platform. They fixed the many accessibility issues we had (i.e., form controls, navigation, text color, links, images) and bugs associated with our shipments through the site via UPS. They also included a camera feature that uploads live views from any of our stores onto the site in real time.

What is the team composition?

I primarily correspond with Chris (CEO and Founder, The Sneakers Agency) and he also has a team of engineers who work on our website.

How did you come to work with The Sneakers Agency?

They were one of three companies recommended to us by a company that completed an audit of then-current state. Compared to the other two, The Sneakers Agency seemed like the best fit; they were the most responsive.

How much have you invested with them?

We've invested over $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been working together since November 2017. They just finished the ADA compliance project and we're in the process of figuring out how to keep working with their team.

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

We've received a lot of good feedback on the improvements that they've made to the website. They've helped us achieve ADA compliance and improve overall website performance and customer satisfaction. Calls from customers unable to complete their orders through our website have almost completely stopped.

How did The Sneakers Agency perform from a project management standpoint?

Their customer service was above and beyond our experience with previous vendors. They're respectful and patient when communicating with us. It's been refreshing to work with an agency that actually wants to help us learn about some of the technical work they're doing.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're very responsive. Whenever I have an issue or a question, they respond immediately and are willing to meet in person when we prefer. In addition to making themselves available to us, they're flexible and work around our schedules.

Their actual deliverables also exceeded our expectations. Our previous vendor was unable to incorporate the store camera feature on our site, but The Sneakers Agency was able to get it up and running within just a few weeks.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. I'm very happy with them.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the co-founder and one of the partners at a small New York-based alternative investment management firm. Our team trades a variety of financial assets and products and we currently have about $20 million under management.

What challenge were you trying to address with The Sneakers Agency?

We asked them to create a website and a blog for us. We're a little bit more active than your average investment manager when it comes to publishing research, so we placed particular emphasis on the blog. There's also a specific site-building framework called Ghost that I wanted to use, so I needed someone familiar with that.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The site design itself was fairly straightforward. They built our homepage and a blog in Ghost, as well as several kinds of contact forms for people to reach out to us or subscribe to our newsletter. We also needed some rebranding work, so they took our existing logo and colors and gussied them up a little bit, then incorporated that aesthetic into the site.

In addition, we needed a number of integrations on the backend that were a bit tricky to implement.  They deployed databases and a few application instances on DigitalOcean, which is a virtual private hosting service. They also integrated Benchmark, our e-newsletter platform, and set up what's called a Mailgun integration, which can send certain kinds of automated emails (like password notifications) to users via our domain name.

Now that this project is complete, we're kicking off a second one to create a mobile app that supplements our site. This involves replicating a lot of our existing content for iOS and Android, so it's not too complex. In order to get this work done, Chris White, the CEO at Sneakers, is going to directly supervise some of our in-house engineers day-to-day since we don't have a CTO to keep tabs on all the details.

What is the team composition?

I primarily work with Chris, but I also coordinate with their business director to settle invoices. They also used an outsourced firm during our redesign project.

How did you come to work with The Sneakers Agency?

I've known Chris for a long time. Having that personal connection and familiarity with his work compelled me to hire them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve probably spent somewhere around $60,000–$65,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The site redesign started in fall 2017 and has just wrapped up, and now they're kicking off the app development project.

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

Since our first project only just ended, most of our feedback has been direct compliments on the design, although we've also received some new cold calls from investors. Sneakers also helped us enter all the metadata for SEO, so we'll be able to analyze our incoming traffic and search data once the site's been running a bit longer.

How did The Sneakers Agency perform from a project management standpoint?

They're highly accessible. For this upcoming project, we'll be meeting in person every day, but we use a number of digital tools as well. We have a platform called Teamwork that we've liked a lot, so we're going to transition everything over to that going forward. We also use GitHub as a code repository. On the previous project, we used a combination of Trello, JIRA, and Slack for project management.

In terms of performance, they started the initial project promptly and they're highly responsive to calls or emails. They were especially quick to correct bugs, which was highly appreciated on the blog since it required a lot of tweaking to present the content exactly the way we wanted it.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're flexible and easy to work with, and they excel at project and engineering management. It's clear from our email communications that Chris reads our concerns carefully and thinks about all the options before proposing a solution. I've never felt like he's left us hanging. He also does his utmost to ensure that every step of the project is documented and completed on time.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I wasn't initially introduced to the outsource engineers that worked on our project, so I was a little bit surprised to see Ukrainian email addresses requesting access to our Google Docs. Being in financial services, we have to be super-careful with security, so it made me nervous until I realized they regularly worked for Chris's team. This didn't harm our experience at all, but I'd suggest they make it more clear who the outsourcing engineers are and introduce them before the project gets underway.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Know exactly what you need to build. I've known Chris a long time, and I've seen him deal with projects where the plan for the concept changes halfway through. Switching gears can become devastating to the creative momentum on the development end, even for the outsourced people. Not only that, Sneakers isn't offering cheap service, so it's silly to invest in such good quality without knowing what you want or need. One of the reasons our project went so well is that I had very clear requirements. It helps that I've designed and spec'd sites like this before, but if you haven't, they can help you narrow down the specifications you need.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a freelance work platform which allows brands to connect to brand ambassadors. We come from a staffing background, so we have a community of people to reach out to, as well as a user-acquisition team for recruitment. I am the founder.

What challenge were you trying to address with The Sneakers Agency?

Our head of development left the company, so we brought The Sneakers Agency in as a partner in order to build our technology platform.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Sneakers Agency developed our brand portal for the companies making the hiring, and an iOS app for people looking for work. Our app works similarly to TaskRabbit, but is aimed at brands which want to hire resources. It manages the communication flow between parties, as well as the workflow itself. We have a Stripe integration, as well as credit-card authorization.

We’ve used a number of frontend and backend developers for iOS and other technologies.

How did you come to work with The Sneakers Agency?

Our former head of engineering referred The Sneakers Agency to us. Chris White, their founder, is a very hands-on person, and is very engaging. Few agencies will make the effort to visit a client’s office and develop a relationship. The Sneakers Agency feels more like a partner than an outsourced agency.

How much have you invested with The Sneakers Agency?

The cost of The Sneakers Agency's work has totaled around $425,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with The Sneakers Agency in June 2016. We’ve hired an in-house CTO and an engineering team for him, through which we’ve absorbed much of the work. We’re still using a couple of developers from The Sneakers Agency, but the work is mainly in-house. The transition was made in January 2017.

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

We’ve cared mostly about our roadmap for deliverable timelines. I don’t have specific metrics, but I would say that The Sneakers Agency has had average performance. In tech, things always take longer than anticipated, which is challenging for any business. We’ve found this to be true for our own tech team, and, as a business owner, I’m not pleased unless things launch on time.

We’ve launched on one market during our collaboration with The Sneakers Agency, and reached around 1,500 people in New York City.

How did The Sneakers Agency perform from a project management standpoint?

For an outsourced partner, The Sneakers Agency has been reliable, communicative and trustworthy. They outsource engineers, which can be challenging in terms of work quality, but The Sneakers Agency’s product management and communication have been very professional.

The Sneakers Agency uses the scrum methodology, and works on two-week sprints. They don’t release features immediately, which is an area of improvement. It takes a while to push things live, but The Sneakers Agency has gotten us into a good flow.

We use Trello and Slack for communication, and have a constant point of contact. The Sneakers Agency worked with us on-site a lot in the beginning, but many of their developers are international, so we never actually met them. Brandon and Chris have visited our location more than the average agency would have.

What did you find most impressive about The Sneakers Agency?

They’re great communicators and good human beings. The team has great work ethic, and, when they say they’ll do something, they do it. The Sneakers Agency is a great partner which adapted based on our challenges, and I would recommend them 10 times out of 10. They’ve helped us refine our vision, and did a lot of strategy work.

Are there any areas The Sneakers Agency could improve?

No. We’re also working with The Sneakers Agency for our other company, building a new website.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

LaunchMetrics builds software to helps brands launch their products to market. We have a suite of solutions, including event management, sample-tracking, and contact management platforms. We deal with influencer data and influencer marketing, for which we will be launching a tool soon. We cater mostly to the fashion industry and have a good stronghold with all major fashion agencies and brands. I am a UX and product manager.

What challenge were you trying to address with The Sneakers Agency?

We needed support for our mobile apps. We had an internal resource at the time, but that person left, and The Sneakers Agency became our sole iOS and Android developers.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our involvement with The Sneakers Agency was two-pronged, involving both development services and overseeing the work, in a project-management-like fashion.

The fact that we’re not mobile experts has meant that we’ve looked to The Sneakers Agency for advice on the whole process. There was a bit of a learning curve for us. I do work with our PHP web developers, which is a very different process, technically-speaking. The Sneakers Agency was there for us as an expert.

How did you come to work with The Sneakers Agency?

I wasn’t a part of the team that hired The Sneakers Agency, but I believe that our CEO knew Chris White [Founder, The Sneakers Agency]. Fashion has odd timelines, including two major fashion weeks that are relevant to the company, one in September and one in February. We always have big pushes to get features out before those periods. The Sneakers Agency was able to work with our deadlines, and always went above and beyond in making sure that we hit them. As a product manager, this was a big plus for me.

How much have you invested with The Sneakers Agency?

We have a retainer with The Sneakers Agency for $4,000 per month, which has remained the same for some time. We also work on one or two individual projects per year, ranging from $5,000 to $15,000. The cost would be between $65,000 and $80,000 per year. In total, we’ve spent around $275,000 on The Sneakers Agency’s services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with The Sneakers Agency in 2014.

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

Our last project with The Sneakers Agency was done quite quickly. It was a direct revenue source for our company, and it was a completely new product. All our projects with The Sneakers Agency have been similar to that case.

Most of our products are B2B, but we do offer a free consumer app. It has created a huge increase in traffic and interactions for us. After the project finished, we were very happy with its analytics.

The Sneakers Agency has worked on the mobile version of our event-management platform. It has been our most heavily-used product. I don’t have any statistics for it, but it has definitely contributed to a huge amount of revenue for our company, and has become a part of our core offering.

What did you find most impressive about The Sneakers Agency?

The Sneakers Agency is dedicated to ensuring that our timelines are met. We don’t always give them big periods to work with, but they have managed to deliver. The products delivered are always functional, and up to our specifications.

Are there any areas The Sneakers Agency could improve?

The Sneakers Agency is growing quickly, which is good for them, but there are some growing pains that come with this. We’ve experienced this on our side as well, and know that there are challenges with understanding whose role each part is. Chris has stepped back a bit from direct operations, but The Sneakers Agency has been understanding in working with us.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with The Sneakers Agency?

The Sneakers Agency is able to scale based on our needs. We may only perform some bug-fixes over a three-month period but may need to beef-up their retainer for a big project suddenly. The Sneakers Agency can accommodate whatever we need, which is definitely an important factor.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a transformation consultancy working with leaders and leadership teams to help them through a couple of impact areas, namely getting them to understand their mission, purpose, and values. We also work with people who are bringing new offerings to the market, offering larger strategy consulting. As a company, we’ve spun off some branded digital and physical products. 

What challenge were you trying to address with The Sneakers Agency?

My work is focused on our own products - Leadfully and Unstuck - as well working with clients on their initiatives. The Sneakers Agency has collaborated with me in both areas.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our largest and longest-running project that The Sneakers Agency has worked on is a product called Unstuck, an in-the-moment digital coach that's ready every time we're feeling stuck. The app helps us see and solve situations with fresh perspective through provocative questions, targeted tips, and action-oriented tools. It's an approach that works for all kinds of issues, large and small, so we can live better every day. We offer iPad and web apps, as well as a website. The Sneakers Agency has provided development and technical strategy for the iPad version, as well as early Ruby on Rails and JavaScript development for the web version to a smaller degree.

The Sneakers Agency has worked with us on a continuous loop, coinciding with iOS updates, especially since our app was created at the dawn of iOS. A lot has changed since then, and The Sneakers Agency has helped us keep the app running well for a significant portion of our users through every single iOS upgrade, which is no small feat, given how graphically intense and non-standard the app actually is. The Sneakers Agency has also provided advice on the evolution of the iOS and mobile markets, based on their experience with other clients. They’ve given us advice on how we should grow and what we should be doing to the app, technically speaking, to make sure that it remains competitive, proficient, and distributable.

Apple provides tons of standard components that can be integrated into apps—buttons, text entry, and so on. Our app not use many of those. Even the screen transitions are all bespoke, as are the backgrounds, inputs, and their reaction to interface changes. To do this in the first version of iOS was challenging, but, because it was still the "Wild West", it was easier. As we’ve moved on, Apple has tightened what we can do and purposely made things look and feel similar between different apps. It’s been quite a challenge to make sure that we’re still maintaining the fun, playful, and unique feel that we’ve worked hard to establish. The app has a visually rich, image-dense custom input and display.

The Sneakers Agency has advised us to take more standard approaches. They’re quite pragmatic, but they only had this approach in areas with little or no UI impact. Also, when something would’ve cost too much or been too difficult to achieve, The Sneakers Agency worked with us on getting te maximum value for the user while maintaining the strong brand. The Sneakers Agency has been very good at understanding how important the brand is and why it was created as it was. They’ve come to us as partners in maintaining that, while still not making us pay millions of dollars. They’ve also helped us with client engagements, which required website builds.

How did you come to work with The Sneakers Agency?

Their founder was referred to us by a recruiter. When our internal iOS developer left to pursue another opportuninity, we began looking for either a short-term or long-term replacement and found The Sneakers Agency. We interviewed them and were excited to see that their founder, Chris White, was an actual human being who not only knew how to structure, build, and support iOS apps, but how to speak with stakeholders about the technical limitations of and opportunities available within iOS.

iOS was still quite new, and the iPad had just been released. Our app coincided with the launch of the device, so there were few people who knew what they were doing and even fewer who could actually speak to me about the subject. Chris was one of the very few of the latter group.

How much have you invested with The Sneakers Agency?

In the first year, we were paying Chris around $50,000, but we were his main client, and he grew with us as we were developing the app. As he shifted more towards The Sneakers Agency and growing that business, our cost also went down. Our investment in iOS has shrunk, but we’re spending around $8,000–$10,000 for every yearly upgrade and a few other incremental changes. I would estimate that we’ve spent another $100,000 since our first year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them since before the company was called The Sneakers Agency, around 2013. 

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

The Sneakers Agency has definitely saved us money compared to hiring an internal developer. They’ve certainly been less expensive than other shops as well. I don’t know which statistic would be most appropriate metrics-wise since The Sneakers Agency has probably saved us as much as they’ve cost us because of their advice. As we’ve scaled back investments on the iPad app, they’ve been incredibly supportive of our decisions. For the past year, The Sneakers Agency has saved us money by not doing certain things, but I don’t have any hard stats.

When The Sneakers Agency started working on the app, we crossed one million users. This definitely happened on their watch and was possible in part because of them. The Sneakers Agency has helped us get to this point and kept the app alive long enough for our team to figure out how to utilize it. They’ve also advised us how to work the App Store mechanisms in order to get more users and communicate with them efficiently through push notifications, deep linking, and so on.

How did The Sneakers Agency perform from a project management standpoint?

We’ve dealt directly with Chris on an almost constant basis. We’ve provided a lot of project management ourselves since there is a full-time team on the product. The Sneakers Agency isn’t just providing straight-up coding, but there’s less overhead on their end. Chris has acted like an account manager for us, rather than a project manager, but he has served in that role as well when it was needed.

We’ve worked with other people on The Sneakers Agency’s end for project management and updates, but Chris knows our company and product very well, so it’s often more efficient to work with him.

The Sneakers Agency has been very good at helping us understand timeline and costs as well as how to make very good trade-offs. They’ve been very good at delivering on time and ensuring that we’re building up to an appropriate level of review, both from internal stakeholders and app stores. The Sneakers Agency tends to have a high level and granularity of checklists for ensuring that we’re meeting all of our milestones, even the ones we aren’t considering ourselves.

Since our tasks are relatively atomic at the moment, The Sneakers Agency’s involvement isn’t so great, but they’ve been a fantastic partner.

What did you find most impressive about The Sneakers Agency?

While their development skills are amazing; most of all, The Sneakers Agency has phenomenal customer service. They’ve always been the people who can help us understand what decisions we should be making while relaying that to us in plain English, with almost no technical needs on our part. This has been great when speaking with one of our managers, the client team, or the CEO.

Are there any areas The Sneakers Agency could improve?

The Sneakers Agency went through some growing pains a year and a half ago. I wish they had been more diligent about finishing things which were more long-term and didn’t have date sensitivity. This doesn’t really happen anymore, though. The Sneakers Agency has been doing a good job of fixing these annoyances during the last 20 months. I do wish that The Sneakers Agency was a larger company since I would like to get them involved in some of our more extensive client work.