STRV

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the sole founder of a small startup, which I started about a year ago after previously working at a venture capital firm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with STRV?

We were looking to develop a personal CRM [customer relationship management] mobile app for iOS. Not everyone can pay for Salesforce, and everyone wants an app for that. We wanted to build a smaller CRM for both individuals and small businesses to be able to use.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We used STRV as half of our main development, as well as 1 other developer here in San Francisco. The CRM was a working prototype from a design perspective with a little backend working, but STRV built the entire iOS app from scratch.

We had a pretty advanced clickable prototype and handed this off to STRV. They were then able to evaluate and find the right person within their team to help us. We were assigned an account manager, and then 1 iOS developer, based on our needs. The iOS developer, with the help of the account manager, who was able to vet this for us, was one of the only ones that could build a lot of the advanced animation that we wanted. We had a custom table view and animations on emojis that we are using for different use cases. Jan, the developer, was the only one who was able to build the animations according to specifications. They were able to do a lot of fine UI tweaking and custom stuff.

On top of the UI side, STRV was able to handle an immense amount of data related specifically to the user contacts, client side. As we are expanding now to Microsoft 365 and other platforms, they are doing a great job managing all of that. STRV are our primary consideration for any other work that we have.

How did you come to work with­ STRV?

Initially, I was looking at other firms to complete these projects. A lot of the companies were 1-3-person developer shops based out of San Francisco, and a couple others were international. A good friend of mine, through another venture capital firm, had personally used STRV for a side project and knew them really well.

Experience, especially in animation, was a deciding factor for us based on a demo performance. We had such a well-defined end design spec of the interactive screens that we handed off to all the developer shops as a small, confined project, and then we decided who had the best result.

How much have you invested in them?

Approximately $80,000-$120,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We first contacted them 6 months ago, and we have been working with them for about 4 months.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are still in a beta phase; however, we have just compiled a list of over 1,000 beta sign ups after a really brief promotion.

How did STRV perform from a project management standpoint?

STRV does a great job stepping in on the administrative side when needed with the account management. The kicker for us is being able to interface primarily and daily with Jan, the developer himself, through Slack. This was one of our primary needs, and one of the reasons we picked STRV. The ability to control our timeline from that end has been huge. Also, in the first demo at the beginning, STRV was the best and most responsive in hitting the timeline.

What did you find the most impressive about them?

A subtle but helpful thing is that they built their own payment portal, which is potentially something that ends up being a huge problem, especially with international firms. By STRV building their own portal, they’ve made it really seamless.

The distribution of them having their administrative offices in the U.S., and their main developer offices and their ability to maintain a Silicon Valley culture in both places, was huge for us. We didn’t have to deal with a lot of context switching or a lot of different people. It was helpful to maintain the consistency throughout anyone we interacted with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Recently, they have started scaling and getting bigger, and we can tell they have been working with a lot more clients recently. We have been talking with more people and they have still been consistent in their communication. As they are getting bigger, they are working hard on maintaining their level of quality. This is more something to watch, rather than something to improve upon.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder of an iOS chat story app that allows people to role play over text message.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with STRV?

We had a sound, concrete concept for our app that we needed to be developed.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The iOS app that STRV developed is a real time, peer-to-peer chat platform. It has a very robust statistics and analytics system in the backend. They also added gamification to the platform. We worked on specs together, but our side managed most of the specs. They still help manage the code base, but for the most part it’s done. We’re in maintenance mode.

What is the team dynamic?

It was a four person team depending if people came in and out of the project. We had one designer, one frontend, and two backend. There was a very part time project manager split amongst many other projects. I did have one turnover from the team, but it was because he wasn’t good enough for us. We requested that he be replaced with someone more seasoned, which STRV did quickly.

How did you come to work with STRV?

We had a choice to build in-house or outsource. We looked at two other companies, but I had heard from other people that STRV was great to work with. I interviewed them, and then started working with them. STRV provided full suite services, from project management to development, which was what we needed. They are a highly qualified development shop.

How much have you invested with them?

About 30K a month.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from December 2015 until April 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The product is very well received by end users. You can read the app reviews in the app store if you want.

How did STRV perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated via Slack and Skype. They’re very professional and top notch. It was a dedicated team working 40 hours a week producing product. They’re very reliable, excellent communicators, and a great team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were pretty par for the course.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they were really great.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm a Co-Founder at Pura, which is a subscription service for home fragrances. Everything is controlled from a smart dispenser and a mobile app. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with STRV?

Rather than hire in-house people, train them and pay a ton for their salaries, we had STRV assign a team to us, one which already had incredible skill sets, at a fraction of the price of senior-level in-house developers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

STRV took part in the process a bit earlier than we should have engaged them. We were still validating things and developing hardware, which put a bottleneck on what they needed to do on the software end. This was no fault of theirs.

They initially developed a quick minimum viable product for a Kickstarter campaign. We needed quick turnaround in terms of an app UI and UX, and STRV spun up things very fast. We paused the work after that, and re-engaged them in the most recent session, transitioning from an MVP to a fully-fledged product, which could be launched in the app stores.

They are currently working on our iOS and Android apps, the backend cloud infrastructure, and the e-commerce website, which amounts to a lot of development.  

We were assigned a team of developers, rather than working with a couple of developers taking moonlighting projects. We also had a full team that could take care of all UI/UX aspects.

There’ve been around 10 people working on the project throughout, mostly engineers, as well as a couple of designers. Some people are used on an as-needed basis, while others have been full time throughout the length of the process. There has always been an account manager for the project.

How did you come to work with STRV?

We attended an entrepreneurship event in San Francisco, and also did a ton of research on different companies. We ended up choosing STRV 6 months or so later, for the initial kick-off.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together continuously for the last 8 months. We did work with STRV prior to this, for about 2 months, developing a minimum viable product. We plan to launch the company in the fall of 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We haven’t launched the company yet, so we’re still pre-revenue. Everything we’ve been doing represents the future of home fragrance. It’s been impressive for us to work with STRV, because they’ve been able to problem-solve different aspects that had never been touched or done before in this industry. It’s rewarding to work with an incredible team of smart people who can solve problems that don’t exist yet.

How did STRV perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Slack for communication. Weekly meetings are held through Google Hangouts, but we can also jump on a quick phone call with STRV, even though we’re in the U.S., and they’re in the Czech Republic.

A more straightforward project could have been done quicker and could have reached deadlines more accurately. In our situation, everything is brand-new, and we’ve had to pivot. Overall, we’ve been impressed with what STRV has been able to do, considering the limitations.

Things have ended up being more expensive than what we originally bid for because of the pivoting and reiterating. STRV has been incredible to work with, given that much of our money comes in through milestones, and we may not see the next chunk until certain aspects of the hardware or software have been built. We still have to develop, and the clock keeps ticking. STRV has still been cheaper than hiring full-time internal engineers, but they were more expensive than what we anticipated, as a startup.

What did you find most impressive about STRV?

During some of my previous ventures, I’ve worked with 2 different engineering firms. They were smaller scale, but they still treated us like back burner projects and didn’t have the right bandwidth. Working with STRV has actually been the opposite. They have a ton of people who can join the project at any time and are ready to get cracking, once we send them a task to work on. With other companies, we were waiting on them, while, with STRV, they’re waiting on us.

For someone trying to build an MVP, STRV can work incredibly fast. They can push out incredible UI and UX in a very short amount of time. We were very impressed with those aspects, and any startup, especially a software one which doesn’t have to deal with hardware logistics and headaches, will find them to be an incredible way to spin up an MVP and get it out to investors and users in a short amount of time.

Are there any areas STRV could improve?

I love working with them and will continue to do so, even after this startup. In terms of areas of improvement, it would have been good for us to be given a portfolio of engineers. Some might have fit aspects of what we were trying to do a bit better than others. Being able to pick engineers based on skill sets, and have them be more cohesive with our project specifically, would be good.

Most of their resources have been great with spoken English, and there were no real language barriers.

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

I and my co-founder aren’t technical at all, in the sense of engineering; we’ve had to basically get our education drinking through a fire hose. It’s been helpful for us to work with the account manager at different times. They’ve been able to be the middleman, and translate certain aspects into more technical jargon. If there can also be an in-house person brought to the team (a technical co-founder or similar) will help leaps and bounds for making sure things are accurately understood the first time, rather than having to have back-and-forths.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Head of Finance of a social networking company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Ours is the first social network built around the calendar.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire STRV to accomplish?

• iOS and backend engineering support.

SOLUTION

How did you find STRV?

Referral

Why did you select STRV over others?

Referred to me

How many teammates from STRV were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

We tasked STRV to work alongside our existing engineering team both in development of new features for us as well as backend support during a period of extreme growth.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Shipping new features on our roadmap & stability.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Yes, they delivered items on time and were very responsive in Slack and were regularly in meetings (i.e. standups).

What was your primary form of communication with STRV?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

I was impressed by their ability to get ramped up very quickly, as well as their availability and willingness to support in any way necessary.

Are there any areas for improvement or something STRV could have done differently?

More candidate optionality or specialized personnel would be a nice to have, but not totally necessary.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the SVP of product for a credit and incentive procurement business.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with STRV?

We needed a company that could develop our app in React Native so that we could deploy it to Android and iOS devices simultaneously. We also required a partner with design capabilities and extensive mobile app development experience for both front- and backend development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We hired STRV as our outsourced design and development shop to help us build our native iOS and Android apps. The discovery process took a couple of months, during which STRV helped us map the app out.

After the discovery process, we worked collaboratively on creating the app’s UI/UX — our product management and design teams gave STRV a good direction. Then, they worked on the entire engineering and development process autonomously. The project required developing the app’s infrastructure and cloud functionality.

Aside from React Native for mobile development, we used Python, React for web development, AWS and Amazon Redshift on the backend, and a lot of different APIs for different infrastructure components, such as Appsfire and Firebase. STRV also implemented FullStory and Amplitude for analytics, as well as Figma for UI/UX design.

Regarding the app itself, we call it the wizard. It provides a complete consumer experience for applying for credit. This experience is interactive and has haptics, feedback, affirmations, and confirmations. It also connects with the users’ payroll to pull authenticated bank statements.

For users who complete the entire application process, the app also has dashboards and push notifications, where they’re provided with application statuses and updates throughout their process. Users can also upload documentation like PDFs, images, screenshots, or documents from Dropbox.

What is the team composition?

At any given time, we worked with around 10-15 teammates from STRV. They had senior product managers handling the workflows and development cycles. We also worked with full stack designers, UI/UX designers, frontend engineers, and backend engineers.

How did you come to work with STRV?

STRV was recommended to us by one of our board members. They met all of our requirements; that’s why we hired them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent a couple million dollars.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around September 2022. By the first quarter of 2023, we had an MVP of the app. Then, by June 2023, we launched a commercially distributable product. It was a nine-month engagement.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

This app isn’t a go-to-market product but a supplement to our web app, and it has helped us with the processing and ongoing interaction of our 26,000 users. This product is a business-to-business-to-consumer product, so it has a better-than-average B2B interaction, which is highly elevated.

The quality of STRV’s work was great, and the finished product was excellent. Its design was excellently delivered, and the quality of its interactions was great. It also had great uptimes, as crashes were very limited, and the responsiveness of the app was excellent for both iOS and Android platforms.

How did STRV perform from a project management standpoint?

STRV did a great job managing the project. They delivered on time and on budget despite the many changes on our side. We used Google Meet and Slack to communicate, as well as Jira for project management.

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

Kristiyan (Senior Product Manager) did an excellent job managing a lot of our fluid changes, executing the project, keeping his team on track, and hitting all the milestones so that no cycles were lost.

What did you find most impressive about them?

STRV was excellent — I can recommend them for mobile app development projects.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have no improvement suggestions for STRV. They had great resources and applied them properly when needed.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have your idea flushed out and ensure that you know what you want to do with it, as it will make the design process more effective.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Wellth is a digital health company focused on helping complex patients with chronic diseases build healthy, lasting habits.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire STRV?

As a technology startup we do not have personnel for all typical functional roles. We need someone to help with thorough QA passes on our app prior to major releases, ideally someone not on the product development team.

What were your goals for this project?

QA assistance on a recurring basis (e.g. monthly)

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

STRV offered a reasonable price and a flexible engagement model, and continued to be a good partner with strong communication.

Describe the project in detail.

Assistance in executing manual QA by running ~100 test cases in various scenarios through our mobile app.

What was the team composition?

Rotating QA analyst / QA engineer

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Fewer P0 and P1 production bugs

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Great

What did you find most impressive about this company?

STRV is flexible on their engagement models and does not adhere to a rigid playbook. This is something we appreciate as a growing startup whose needs change.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No.