ThinkNimble

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and CEO of a software services platform that helps international institutions, citizens, organizations, and digital nomads, expats, and travel insurance companies to travel safely. Our offering is a mobile application that combines fun social aspects of travel with hardcore risk management services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ThinkNimble?

The project stems from a lack of adherence to travel safety resources while on school and work trips. If you travel on someone else’s dime, they have the legal responsibility for your mental and physical well-being. Young travelers have a higher-than-average risk tolerance and can end up in crazy, risky situations that sometimes result in multi-million dollar lawsuits. 70% of young travels don’t submit key travel data to the people sponsoring the trip, and they’re less safe as a result. Our solution helps to avoid these situations.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We approached them to build our first MVP, both the mobile app and the web backend. To start, Nimble helped us narrow down what we needed to build first, second, and so on. This was very important, especially for startups. They truly acted as our in-house CTO, helping us navigate our design challenges, create the UX/UI, and more.

They worked with both front and backend technologies. We used React Native to do our mobile app, which is cross-platform for both iOS and Android, as well as Python and Django for the backend. Vue.js supports the frontend of the app, but we’re going to upgrade it to Node.js in the future.

In terms of design, they helped with the initial creation of the design and then did our entire UX.  We built the UX with a behavioral science and gamification methodology, and Nimble actually brought in another client they’d worked with to guide our UX and UI design.

What is the team composition?

We worked with three main people: the CEO, the COO, and the CTO. We also worked with a lead project manager. From there, they had a variety of folks working on our project in-house. There was also a senior backend and a senior full-stack developer to help bring everything together.

How did you come to work with ThinkNimble?

They found us. We were pitching at a startup demo day, and they came up to us afterward. What stood out to me during the process was that they were straight with us: we told them what we wanted and they told us if they could deliver or not. They also told us they were going to make suggestions, which was refreshing. In the sea of technology vendors, most are really in it for the money.

Even though they were a bit more costly than their competitors in the offshore market, but we’d had bad experiences before and wanted to prioritize working with a trustworthy partner.

How much have you invested with them?

Our initial contract was for $60,000, and that got us a barebones but still functional MVP. We then paid $500 per month for maintenance for about 2–3 months.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from August 2019–May 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Thanks to ThinkNimble’s MVP, we were able to close our first institutional pilot client. This was our main goal, and we achieved it. Their combination of the MVP mobile product with a web backend and database allowed us to close a deal with the large midwestern university.

How did ThinkNimble perform from a project management standpoint?

They worked through two-week-long sprints and met our deadlines. I don’t believe we were over budget or time. The Atlassian suite supported our project management, including Jira, Confluence, and more. Communication mostly took place over Google Meet, Zoom, and Slack. They were very communicative.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were very hypothesis oriented, focusing on what would help our business achieve our goals. They wouldn’t create a feature just because we asked for it. They dove into why we were creating the feature, which helped us clarify what we needed to build.

They ran a very highly personalized process and were rands-on throughout. I respected their opinions, and they acted as part of my team. It felt like we were working with an in-house team despite actually being an outsourced partner. They have in-depth knowledge of startups, entrepreneurship, and iterative idea validation.

Are there any areas they could improve?

As part of my vetting process, I get at least three recommendations from other people, and the only negative feedback I heard was that they didn’t like ThinkNimble’s style of work. They wanted it done one way. I very much enjoyed their style, however. Accommodating clients with different styles would be one area for improvement.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Entrepreneurship is a slow process, so trust their team. ThinkNimble has a solid team, so I would respect their feedback. They’ll have good feedback for you and push back to make your business better.