SwiftKick Mobile

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re an AR platform that helps artists and designers exhibit their works in augmented reality.

What challenge were you trying to address with SwiftKick Mobile?

We were looking to build out the mobile side of our platform, starting with identifying a tech stack and going from there.

What was the scope of their involvement? 

SwiftKick Mobile created our iOS app and the backend infrastructure. We initially handed off wireframes made in-house to develop the MVP, but over time we’ve shifted to a more collaborative design process with their design team.

What is the team composition? 

We work with two people on a regular basis that take our conversations to the developers.. There’s the core project manager who’s been our main point of daily contact and we work with their design team on weekly check-ins. Beyond that, the engineering team seems to fluctuate to meet the needs of the scope.

How did you come to work with SwiftKick Mobile?

When we were scoping this project, we got a number of estimates from different development firms, but SwiftKick Mobile seemed the most down-to-Earth. They understood our vision for our product and had mutual interest in developing with newly available AR frameworks. They had also published a few project on their GitHub that showed us their work quality.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve worked with them since September 2018.

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

We’re currently in the prelaunch stage, so we can’t go into any specifics about our product. However, we can say that it’s been great quality-wise. We can depend on them to deliver quality builds and feel that we are kept in the loop on development progress and overall status. 

On top of that, I appreciate that they go out of their way to fix things that we’ve overlooked or didn’t plan for. They have a comprehensive QA process to catch any bugs at the end of each sprint, so there haven’t been any major issues to date. 

How did SwiftKick Mobile perform from a project management standpoint?

At first, the project management was a bit rocky. The scope was too loose and neither of us had the resources to pause and re-define. They quickly understood that there was a problem, so they brought in a project manager to smooth things out.

Since then things have been quite smooth. At this point, we’ve been working with them long enough to get a pretty defined structure in place. It starts with wireframing/design work, then scoping and estimation, development, and finally the QA and deployment. They’ve been great at meeting the deadlines that they set.

In terms of communication, we talk daily over Slack and email. We also use a combination of Sketch, InVision, and Zoom for design-related tasks. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re really human. You can have a conversation with them and know that you’re not just talking to an administrative contact who represents a large organization. That makes for a very fulfilling work relationship.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Aside from the initial project management challenges, I can’t think of any. It’s been a learning experience for the both of us. Anytime they’ve identified an issue, they’ve worked hard to fix it.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It depends on the project. We’re in a unique position because we started from a completely blank slate, which meant we had to develop the products with them. 

Thinking back to when we first started working with them, so much has changed on the technology logic and even the business logic. It’s important to be flexible and to take their help when they offer it — they’re able to adapt to your needs.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our company and our apps are called Cahoots. Cahoots serves as a company-wide walkie-talkie for users. Anywhere in the world with a WiFi or cell signal, you can press a button in Cahoots and speak with any group or person also using it.

What challenge were you trying to address with SwiftKick Mobile?

We wanted to fix certain bugs within the apps as well as implement some new features in both the iOS and Android versions.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They helped us fix issues such as general connectivity as well as excessive battery consumption while using the app. One of the features we wanted to add was Bluetooth compatibility.

What is the team composition?

We worked with two members of their team who served as project managers and developers.

How did you come to work with SwiftKick Mobile?

A colleague recommended them to us and said they were very good.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in approximately August 2017. We are still working with them now. It is mostly maintenance, but in early May 2018, they completed a few features and we are continuing to work with them on a few minor bugs and additional features.

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

The battery consumption issue on iOS used to deplete a battery by 15%–20% an hour. Now, on average, it’s about 5% an hour. Customer feedback has been positive, too. As the head of sales, I particularly notice the feedback we don’t hear anymore, which tells me that bugs are fixed and new features are implemented without issue.

How did SwiftKick Mobile perform from a project management standpoint?

We’ve been pleased with the pace at which they’ve completed tasks for us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have been exceptional, especially compared with other developers we’ve worked with. They solved problems others couldn’t and they did it efficiently, helping our budget and our timeline.

Are there any areas they could improve?

As a tech company, you always want things done faster, but they have been faster and they communicate better than anybody else we’ve worked with.

Any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about what you want and need. I appreciate their ability to get us to be really clear about what we need. Follow that process with them and it’ll go well.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My company is called Square Root, and I’m a senior product manager. We build software solutions for multi-unit regional organizations, in hopes to improve the performance of their stores and improve the relationship between corporate and stores.

What challenge were you trying to address with SwiftKick Mobile?

In multi-unit retail, you have a big corporate structure and a lot of franchised or wholly-owned stores. Our customers range anywhere from 150 to 1,200 stores each. They have a field team that is designated a certain geography and number of stores. They monitor the performance of the stores, check on brand compliance, and other things.

We realized that these field people are on the road all the time, constantly visiting stores, they’re just very mobile, and we didn’t have a good mobile solution for them. All their work had to be done at night, in their hotel rooms, on their laptops, because they didn’t have a mobile solution.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We approached SwiftKick Mobile to help develop a mobile solution for us. With SwiftKick, we built an iOS app, as most of our consumers work on that platform. It allows field users to log in and document their visit while they’re at the stores. They take notes and photos and then create new follow-up action items. So, that was the first round we did with SwiftKick.

The second round was to add a fully functioning reviews tool, which is kind of a survey or assessment of the store. They walk through the store and mark things as they go; such as whether the bathrooms are clean, if all the signage is brand compliant, and if there are handicapped parking spots. They can quickly run through the store, mark things down and take photos of things that are not compliant so that they can be followed up on later.

SwiftKick did a little bit of design. We have an in-house design team that created most of the designs for the screens, but SwiftKick offered suggestions on using the general iOS components rather than creating something custom, as it was more cost-efficient.

We started off with two resources from SwiftKick and ended with three. When we first built the mobile app, we didn’t yet have the web app or API’s finished. We worked in parallel, and they helped us a lot with the designing of our API’s to better work with mobile. They also provided a bunch of training sessions with our engineering team, to make sure our team understood what we were doing and why. SwiftKick provided some documentation in the form of slideware and then some presentations to our team.

One of our customers requested a multi-photo picker. We had originally started with just the ability to do a single photo. So, SwiftKick provided a lot of research and help in picking the right third-party library to use for the photo picker. They even did the prototype for us, and they added that very quickly.

How did you come to work with SwiftKick Mobile?

We originally found SwiftKick because Tim, one of the founders, had done some work for us in the past. He already knew our CEO and executives, so the CEO brought them in to pitch us and see if they were someone we would want to use. We had a couple of other vendors in the mix, but we decided to go with them due to the prior relationship. Everyone felt comfortable with their skillset.

How much have you invested with SwiftKick Mobile?

We’ve invested $50,000-$200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I believe the work began around March of 2015, and it is complete. We’ve gotten the app to a pretty solid state. We have SwiftKick make improvements from time to time, but we don’t have an open contract right now. We did two or three phases of the project, and the last phase was completed in October of 2016.

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

With any of our actual pushes to the app store, we had no major issues, no real blockers. The quality was always excellent. SwiftKick did a very good job on testing. One time we ran across an issue that was just a use case that we hadn’t thought about. They built their own test suite and showed us how it was testing, and they were able to update that.

The users love it. It keeps them from working after hours, as they can get everything done at the store. The users say it’s exactly what they needed, it’s super easy to use, and they can get through everything quickly. They just love it.

How did SwiftKick Mobile perform from a project management standpoint?

In the beginning, I was functioning as a project manager, but that shifted quickly. SwiftKick started using Pivotal Tracker, and that helped a lot. Once they got that set up, all the project management stuff took care of itself. Every once in a while, I had to ask for an invoice, but they sent them most of the time on a regular schedule. They communicated well and met the deadlines.

What did you find most impressive about SwiftKick Mobile?

I really appreciated all the knowledge SwiftKick brought to us, as we don’t have that in-house. It felt like they were working as a part of our team when we were building the API’s, and that was great. We developed a camaraderie and a collaborative relationship. There were times we had to stop their work because the API’s weren’t built yet, and SwiftKick was very understanding and agreeable to pick back up once they were done. Tim and Marc [Partner & CTO, SwiftKick Mobile] were great, and even when they brought on a third person, it was seamless. We had no problems.

Are there any areas SwiftKick Mobile could improve?

The project management started off a little rocky, but that improved as we went. SwiftKick fixed everything we asked of them.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are an identity protection software company founded in 2006. Our products are identity monitoring systems. Customers get alerts via email or text message from our platform regarding potential fraud risk attributed to their identity. I run the product and marketing divisions of the company.

What challenge were you trying to address with SwiftKick Mobile?

We were looking to deploy a native application infrastructure but we did not have the required skill sets in-house. We wanted to deliver alerts through push notifications and have them consumed natively, so we needed an app infrastructure to do that. The app would provide a layer of communication for our notification system. Since we are also a white-label wholesaler of technology solutions for other brands, the solution should allow us to brand a core app in multiple ways. Specifically, we needed the ability to deploy multiple apps on a single platform for multiple brands. In order to help us with that process, we needed to outsource native app development. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

SwiftKick Mobile helped us understand how to build a repeatable infrastructure. This allowed us to deploy the hosted solutions that we utilize and manage for our clients. We are able to do this through multiple apps and across multiple brands.

They also assisted us with the native development work and integrated with our development team from a Scrum perspective. The apps are on both iOS and Android; we have a single app for both phone and tablet.

SwiftKick Mobile was only involved in the development since we collaborated with another firm to assist us with the design aspect of the project. We worked with 2 project managers and 4 developers from SwiftKick Mobile.

How did you come to work with SwiftKick Mobile?

They were referred to me by a friend that worked with them before. We were looking for someone local in Austin. We also wanted a company that was fairly nimble, small, and able to integrate into our development process. SwiftKick Mobile was competent in the way they described their capability. We felt confident in the work they did for other local companies. Finally, they also had some cost advantages compared to other, larger firms.

How much have you invested with SwiftKick Mobile?

We have spent about $300,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them the first quarter of 2016 and stopped in October. The project is paused at the moment due to budget constraints, but we are going to pick back up with them, resources notwithstanding, at some point in early 2017. 

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

We have not seen a business impact yet because it has not been deployed to our clients, but we have been approved now by the App Store and Google Play Store. Our development team is very happy with their work. After asking our team to see if there was an interest in working with SwiftKick Mobile, we are now looking to secure budget to continue our engagement.

How did SwiftKick Mobile perform from a project management standpoint?

They were very polished in the way they communicated and worked with our team. Unfortunately, I was not at the level in the project to be able to speak from a day-to-day perspective. SwiftKick Mobile met all of our objectives.

What did you find most impressive about SwiftKick Mobile?

They were able to officially and fully integrate as an extension of our team. They were part of our development sprint cycle, as opposed to feeling like a third party.

Are there any areas SwiftKick Mobile could improve?

We got held up in the iOS approval process due to the web functionality in our app. While I have come to appreciate the lack of a clear playbook with Apple’s approval process, it would have been ideal if we had more insight from SwiftKick Mobile on potential approval hurdles. These obstacles include accepting payments in the app or asking for payments external to iOS’s payment infrastructure.