SoluLab

What was the scope of their involvement?

We made a prototype app using another developer, but SoluLab told us that they couldn’t build on top of it, and we had to start from scratch. They took over, becoming involved in everything from design to back- and frontend development—anything related to the technology of the app. They also did patent research for us.

As a startup, we want to make sure that costs are low, and money goes to where it’s needed. The current app has been developed only for iOS, which could reach most of our target audience, namely college students. If the proof-of-concept testing goes well, we will look at the scope for the Android side as well, which will be built off the iOS version. SoluLab has started this process, and they have the right people for the development.

They are developing everything on the website as well. We use Stripe for coupon redemption. The app integrates with the website.

What is the team composition?

We currently have six developers, but there were four previously. They provide additional developers during crunch times, such as when we needed to deliver something faster than expected because of investor deadlines.

How did you come to work with SoluLab?

A friend who had worked for them connected me to the company. I told him about my problems with the previous developer—the high, no transparency whatsoever, and the atrocious quality of work. He connected me to Chintan Thakkar [CEO, SoluLab], who setup a business call. He explained his background and how the company worked. After the call, I received a spreadsheet with a breakdown of the cost and time for every feature, giving me an idea of what it would take.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested $25,000 to $30,000 so far. We have $8,000 remaining in the budget.

Our previous developer was going to charge us $120,000 for the project, and the quality of work would have been lower.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with SoluLab in September 2017.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’ve built three mobile apps for us so far, and now they’re building more of a whole platform, an end-to-end system. The apps are around our existing product. One is a parental control app, one is a filtering app that goes on the kid’s phone, and another is called Clean YouTube. We have CleanYouTube.io, so it’s a portal into YouTube, and SoluLab built an app to go along with that. Now they’re helping us build out some of the backend systems and such.

The apps are all available on iOS and Android. The technologies varied on the different projects. PhoneGap was on the first one, and some more recent ones they built native. The backend technologies varied between Python, PHP, MySQL, and a handful of other stuff. I don’t want to go in-depth with the backend system project, as some of that is proprietary and I don’t want it published.

SoluLab is very good at meeting the needs of the project, and not trying to pigeon-hole the project into a technology they already know. A lot of times, you’ll work with a contractor who knows PHP, so all they do is PHP. On the backend system SoluLab is working on right now, there was some code that we were able to use in Python. They extended that using Python. None of the other stuff we had was Python, but it was the right fit. They’re very agile and able to use the technology you need to solve the problem, not the other way around.

How did you come to work with SoluLab?

We originally connected with them on Upwork. Deciding factors in choosing them included cost and efficiency. They’re very cost-effective. When you work with inexpensive contractors, you often get poor results. These guys are actually really good to work with and they produce really high-quality stuff. My co-founder and I are both developers, and we know that the code they produce is very good quality.

How much have you invested with SoluLab?

We’ve spent in the ballpark of $30,000 to $40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June of 2016, and our relationship is ongoing. I just had a meeting with them about an hour ago.

What was the scope of their involvement?

SoluLab handled both the design and the development of the website. I was asking their team to develop for a device they hadn’t used for about five years, so they literally had to go home and borrow their grandparents’ phones in order to explore what was actually possible on the devices. There was an unusual mix of the old and the new, and we needed to think creatively and get around the challenge quickly.

SoluLab delivered a website of learning materials that was targeted at a particular audience, which happened to be in India. To a certain degree, local knowledge was important, but we also needed to work within quite strict technical constraints, including the antiquated end-user devices.

The product needed to work on the Facebook Free Basics platform. There was a series of technical gateways and standards to be met, in terms of possible types of websites and web services within this bubble.

There was a lot of research to be done, and issues to be born in mind by people developing the solution. What SoluLab came up with was a kind of website which worked with these devices. They took a lot of care in designing its activities, minimizing low-memory features thay nonetheless maximized the visual attractiveness of the materials. The interactivity was within the constraints of the very limited browsers on these old phones. They managed to use servers which, instead of having client-side interactivity, employed a lot of cleverness to host that interactivity. They still gave the user an engaging experience, without expecting the user device to carry out those processes.

Within this, SoluLab was also very proactive in coming up with additional benefits for making the experience more engaging. As an example, a user can provide an answer to quiz questions, with limited interactivity like true/false answers, multiple options and so on. SoluLab’s suggestion was to bring some analytics to the experience on the server side. A user will select true or false to quite a simple question, and the server would retrieve the percentage of people who had given the same answer. We could write extra content and send it back to users, making their small-screen experience as engaging as possible.

SoluLab’s members went out and signed up themselves to the other services being offered in this domain. They did a lot of research into testing the limits of what was technically allowed, in terms of showing images and playing back video and audio. SoluLab determined that, although regulations said that a particular feature wasn’t possible, other people were going beyond and stretching X, Y and Z. There was no reason why we couldn’t do that, and even though we hadn’t asked for this, they gave us suggestions on how to implement these things and improve the product. It was perhaps because the project was so novel that it got their juices flowing.

How did you come to work with SoluLab?

I put out a brief and sourced SoluLab through a predecessor to Upwork, called Elance. I chose them because of the comprehensive response they provided. SoluLab went out of their way to understand the background of the project and did independent research that they included in the proposal.

They were my initial recommendation after the initial tender, but we also found another company that was half the price. The client wanted to have an initial iteration with this cheaper option, and spend as little money as possible. By then, I’d had several in-depth conversations with SoluLab around the planning, trying to get them to reduce their proposal as much as possible in terms of price. They couldn’t go under a certain price point and told me that it wasn’t realistically possible to develop a product for the price we were requesting, but that we could go back to them later on. SoluLab was professional in keeping the relationship open, and in assessing what was and wasn’t possible for the budget being offered.

We did develop an initial prototype with someone else, and it had many of the imperfections and limitations that SoluLab had predicted. However, the client saw enough of something which they liked, albeit very limited. We went back and considerably increased the budget, so I approached SoluLab to redo the work. Even though they didn’t get the job the first time, SoluLab remained open to conversations. There appeared to be a lot of integrity on their end compared to the other groups I’d contracted over time on platforms like Freelancer and Elance. I have developed a feel for the type of work someone can do, the amount of preparation they’ve done, and whether they’re trying to upsell or scam me, or whether they’re genuinely interested in getting the job done.

How much have you invested with SoluLab?

The cost of their work was around $5,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with SoluLab in December 2015. The project was completed after three months, around March 2016.

What was the scope of their involvement?

It’s an ongoing thing, and I really look at them as a technology partner. Whenever I have issues building with PHP, Java, native applications, simple landing pages, and any other technology difficulties the company might have, they’re the guys we go to. They help a lot on the design front as well, whether it’s simple wireframing or actually having designers in-house who can provide you with some features.

Right now, we have two major projects going. One is a web development portal, and they’re doing everything from the spec all the way to the design and coding. The second piece of it is really ongoing support. We change what we want to do on a daily basis. We have daily stand-up calls and decide what to do that day.

How did you come to work with Solu Lab?

I had a previous engagement with them that’s still ongoing. We started talking and met in person, then we decided to do a project before this one. It wasn’t really a pricing decision; it was a lot more of having experienced folks at the head of the firm who I could actually meet. It’s almost like local outsourcing. I could meet these guys in person and have discussions. Also, having someone who could almost internally manage a project was very appealing.

How much have you invested with Solu Lab?

We spend an average of $5,000-$10,000 per month with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

This project began in March of this year, and it should be ongoing for another year, at least.