Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.
Working with Tepia, we realized that our platform could become very powerful, especially during elections or for very simple reality-type shows. When you feel some type of emotion, you can register it and compare how the entire audience is feeling versus your response. During the last three years and with Tepia's help, we have evolved. We still do the trends, but we also became a social media aggregator for your favorite shows as well. You don't have to go to Twitter, Facebook, a YouTube channel, or Instagram. We're bringing it all to you so you can have one aggregator to keep up with your shows or favorite celebrities.
Our contract with Tepia says mobile app development, but they have brought in additional value as well. They've been involved in business development and technology innovation, but that's the kind of thing that is not going to show up in a contract. This is how the relationship has evolved during the last two or three years.
How did you come to work with Tepia Co?
The first firm we worked with did not meet our needs fully, so we started looking for another company.
This time I went through the entire process, and I must have interviewed about 10 teams. I covered just about everybody, from a guy on Craigslist who wanted to charge almost nothing while making huge promises, all the way up to Northern California startup-type teams who worked only on big apps. I finally found Tepia through a Craigslist ad. They were just starting out, and I met the owner [Abraham Agopian] at a Starbucks.
Right off the bat, he impressed me. He was low key and inviting – a cool guy. He is very technically savvy, but he speaks like a normal person, like someone who is not in technology. He makes technology very easy to understand. He's an entrepreneur himself, so he kind of understood where we were coming from and where we wanted to go because he's been there as well.
We noticed his pricing was on the lower side, and usually that's a red flag in technology. You don't want to pay too much and you don't want to pay too little. There's some kind of sweet spot in the middle. He was kind of low to middle. I asked him about that, and it was his answer that convinced me that this is our man. He gave me a shocking answer when he said, "I'm just starting out. This would be great for our company's resume. There's only one direction for my company to go, and it's up." My guess would be that a year from now, he might not even take my project.
Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?
We've spent just less than $50,000 working with Tepia.
What is the status of this engagement?
I think the relationship started in January 2013, and I'm still currently working with them. At this point, we've had five iterations since the first version of the app.
Since working with clients with a lower level of technical knowledge, Tepia Co does well with providing clear and easy to understand explanations about the development work they deliver.