TheAppSense

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Lino Rise Media offers stock music through YummySounds.com. I started the business three years ago with royalty-free intro music and jingles, and have since built up the library. We’re currently selling high-quality stock music from Germany to customers from all over the world.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with TheAppSense?

I needed help from a professional developer and found their team in India.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They have worked with me on an ongoing basis to build my website and online shop. We have multiple functionalities on the system, such as a custom music player and a credit system, so it’s not a typical e-commerce platform. The site is WordPress-based, and it uses WooCommerce as the e-commerce base. They also implemented Bootstrap on the site, and coded using JavaScript, PHP, CSS, and HTML.

I am the designer of the website and have creative control of it. They gave me some design suggestions in the past, so the final design was a collaboration, but based on my imagination.

What is the team dynamic? 

I work with a project manager and a web developer from their side. At times we needed more people and brought in three developers in total. I was also in contact with Mohit Tripathi [CEO] who worked as project manager and developer.

How did you come to work with TheAppSense?

I looked for developers on a few occasions and tested some of them by assigning tasks, but wasn’t satisfied. Then I had a look at a site called PeoplePerHour. TheAppSense responded to my application, and I was lucky to get them. It’s hard to find good people in any sector of development.

Since we need a lot of support, I’ve also extended the team with German developers. It’s better for me to have a remote team for most of the work, but also to have someone next to me in the office.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost of their work was between $12,000 and $13,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with TheAppSense in September 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our chief revenue officer created analytics which tell us what we should change in terms of layout. The success is not up to the developer since they do what we tell them to. The platform’s success is attributable to the entire team, and not just TheAppSense.

The entire project is based on a previous website, so it’s hard to pinpoint exact numbers. However, the conversion rate increased from 0.16% to 0.9%, and 1,400 daily visitors. The entire project was then offloaded to YummySounds.com, so now we’re getting new numbers.

How did TheAppSense perform from a project management standpoint?

We typically used Skype but also communicated through WhatsApp from time to time. They have working hours, but I’m self-employed, so I’m working all the time. We’ve had a Skype call three times a week, for the past three months.

There were no language barriers. My native language is German and I learned English in school. I believe the same applies to them so we’ve never had any communication issues.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The personal contact is amazing. Just before releasing YummySounds.com, we had to work overtime, and their team was doing 16-hour days for three days. It’s great to work with people willing to put that much effort into a project.

I recently had a conversation with Mohit at 10 pm, which is 2 am in India. This told me how much effort they put into the project, and how much they wanted us to succeed. They acted more like friends than business contacts, which was important to me; the philosophy of our own company is that we are a family and we stick together in order to make things work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can see what we could improve with TheAppSense, but things need time. We cannot make big changes from one day to the other.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

When working with anyone on a remote basis, clients need to specify requirements as detailed as possible. It's also true for people working directly for a company; they work they do will be as good as the description is, and, if there is a mistake in it, they will make mistakes as well.