Waker

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the chairman of Ticketfire. We sell tickets and have an app used by over 2,000 ticket brokers throughout the world. It takes pictures of hard tickets and turns them into mobile or PDF tickets, which turns physical assets into digital assets. Once they are digital they have a higher value because we can sell them more at the last minute.

What challenge were you trying to address with Ghost Lab?

We needed to update our app. It needed some redesign, and we wanted it to be current, cool, and increase the usability of it.

What was the scope of their involvement? 

We had an app for iOS and Android but it needed to be updated as it was a little out of date, which was more complicated than we thought it was going to be. When we first got into it, we thought there were going to be 17 screens, but it ended being 25. They helped us through all of it. The intense part was on the frontend and then we had some other things to work on and tweak.

It allows people to take a picture of their tickets to a concert, sporting event or whatever it may be, and post them. We create a link on someone’s Facebook page where the tickets can be sold to a friend.

What is the team composition?

We worked with two people who did amazing work and turned it around really quickly. They exceeded our expectations in all ways.

How did you come to work with Ghost Lab?

I’m quite involved in the tech community in Columbus and I believe Ghost Lab had done some work for another company is in one of the incubators I am with. I asked around doing some design work and someone had referred them to us.

How much have you invested in them?

We spent around $10,000–$15,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from October 2016 through to February 2017. 

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

It has been great and the app is current. We’re rated 4.7 in the iOS store. We’re just about ready to start marketing it and have over 68,000 registered users of our app now, which keeps growing weekly. The facts speak for themselves. Our ratings and registered users have gone way up since we redesigned the app.

How did Ghost Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

They were always ready for our weekly meetings and would come back with the promised deliverables. Often on projects like this, the company wants to go faster than the consultants can go. In this particular case, we weren’t always ready and they helped to push us. This made us make a lot of decisions—redesigning the app meant there were a lot of implications and edge cases that we hadn’t thought about, which they forced us to so that it would flow and create a good user experience. I thought they were very responsive and we had no issues whatsoever on deliverables or timeliness. They were great.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very focused on getting it right and on giving us great service. The results speak for themselves as we have a great product, which is highly rated. They played a big part in helping us get there.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not really. I know they are growing and I think they need to keep up with doing what they are doing.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You want to have someone that is experienced as well as current. You can find someone that is current, but might not be experienced in how to lay out things properly, and you can find someone that is experienced that might not be hip enough to know what the latest and greatest is. Ghost Lab has both of those aspects nailed, which was a big benefit for us.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

ambi is a social network, for Work, that's geared specifically towards college students to help them be better organized and collaborate online. It is the first productive social network that enables students to become their most productive, inspired, and focused selves and to learn even during their down time in a fun and engaging way. I'm the COO of the company, in charge of daily operations.

What challenge were you trying to address with Appify?

We needed to complete the development of the platform and needed extra help from talented developers who could go into an existing codebase and hit the ground running. We wanted someone who could contribute quality code and add the features our platform needed. We were using another contracting firm but wanted to move to a US-based one. After interviewing other talented developers, I was genuinely impressed with how quick the Appify team picked up on our project and were able to improve both the features, so what the end-user sees, and improve on the structure of our codebase, which gives us big benefit in the long-run as we grow. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Appify initially provided one developer for our project. After two weeks, since things were working well, we added a second resource. They first had to get set up and understand our existing codebase, which took them under 3 days. The Appify was and is today involved in our daily operations of planning sprints, executing them, bug fixing, coordinating with our in-house devs and other contractors, getting our site running live, and they even give us genuine feedback and suggestions for how our platform can be further improved. It feels like they are part of the team and care about the success of the company, and as a result, we trust them, which is difficult to find with contractors but it seems to be the case with Appify because of the people that work there.  

Going into specifics, one of our platform’s functionalities is our dashboard feature, which is the first thing that someone logging in will see. It provides an overview of the day and gives access to the rest of the platform. One of the things Appify did was to build-out widget and settings features, which allowed people to customize the dashboard as much as they wanted by adding things like weather, daily quotes, interests, and so on. Appify created many of them and also made our dashboard more HD, implementing backgrounds which are stored on Amazon S3 that can be changed daily or left the same.

Appify also helped architect and took responsibility for the implementation of our quick-chat feature. We had parts of it built but really needed someone who could step in and take it to the next level by finishing features like file transfer, group conversations, and other components that people expect nowadays. The Appify team did this in a structured way by first presenting us all the possible providers and options we could go with, and with our involvement and the rest of our developers, weighed the pros and cons and picked which method we thought would be best to build out our chat. Now we have laid out sprints and Appify team is executing them. We get to see results every two weeks, it's really exciting.

How did you come to work with Appify?

I found them through a referral from a friend who is also running a startup. He described Appify as having great engineers. When I contacted them, I saw that their founder really understood what we wanted to do. We’ve had a very good experience with their team members.

How much have you invested with Appify?

We are paying between $2,400 and $3,600 per developer every two weeks. This comes to around $10,000 per month.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Appify in early March 2017. The app is still a work in progress, but Appify has finished some portions of it.

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

We have laid-out sprints for our two developers from Appify. They’ve had to deliver work every two weeks and have pretty much met our deadlines, working on a consistent basis in order to move the cards to the right and knock-out features one by one. Anytime we finished a sprint, Appify was open to making additional small changes.

How did Appify perform from a project management standpoint?

We invited Appify to our Slack channel, and they’ve become very active there. Appify has integrated well with our team and have been very friendly. It’s been awesome to see them become a part of our group. We use Google Hangouts every few days on an as-needed basis, and we use Trello and Asana for task management.

What did you find most impressive about Appify?

Appify’s developers are very talented full-stack engineers, who are able to hit the ground running. We are using a number of technologies, and someone has to know a lot in order to develop our product comfortably. Appify was able to dive into some complex elements that other developers had been working on for a year and understood the challenge within one or two days. Appify contributed to our project in a meaningful way. Even when roadblocks came up, they could figure out what was happening. They came to us with solutions, which is really nice to see. This has been the most impressive thing on the talent side.

On the attitude side, I would say that Appify is very reachable. I can get in touch with them at any point. If we have an upcoming deadline, Appify’s team will stay up with us and get the work done. Lastly, Appify has a leadership mentality: they’re willing to help team members when something is wrong in another area. This is helpful in forming a good team spirit. We’re a small startup, so things like this can go a long way.

Are there any areas Appify could improve?

I was able to speak to Appify about anything I experienced, and they were able to address it. There’s nothing outstanding.

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

Have a clear idea of what you want to get done. Appify’s team is strong on the tech side of things, so the task at hand should be clearly laid-out to help them do what they’re best at.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Mystro is a tech company based in Atlanta. We do in-person and online tutoring nationwide in all sorts of academic subjects and offer test preparation. The Mystro app allows student users to connect with amazing tutors. I’m the founder and CEO. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Appify?

I needed to find a quality development team. The goal was to create a platform for high-school students to be tutored by college students who are relatable to them and could inspire them. I had previously contracted with an Indian firm to build a minimum viable product (MVP), which was done in PHP. It was breaking all the time, so we had to scrap it and start again.

I wanted to find a team that could build an app right the first time and do it cost-effectively. I didn’t want to work with a company that outsourced the development work overseas. In my experience, the quality of the product suffers when you do that. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Appify did everything in terms of the tech side of the project. They were basically our CTO. We worked primarily with Phillip, one of Appify’s founders, who is one of the sharpest people I’ve met. There’s no one like him. He didn’t just do what we said; he wanted it explained, and he wanted to know why. He often came back with better alternative solutions.

We had an in-house designer, but Appify also worked on the design. They did all the development. Phillip led two teams throughout the project. At our highest point, we had five people on the project, including mobile, iOS, and web developers. They built a native iOS app, mostly built on Objective-C. They also built a web app in Angular 2, with the backend in Ruby.

Appify also provided a lot of marketing material and assisted us with a marketing strategy. Most of their work was in the app development, but their experience working on other apps helped to guide us. They have a large talent pool from which to pull resources based on the project’s needs.

I haven’t seen any bugs in the finished product. They’re now working on a retainer to complete some upgrades to the app.

How did you come to work with Appify?

One of our lead investors referred me to an engineer who worked at Google, who then introduced me to Phillip. We looked at dozens of firms, but we couldn’t find anyone who matched our criteria for quality and price.

How much have you invested with Appify?

We’ve invested around $50,000 in this app. They’re the only firm that said they could make a quality app for that price.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working on the platform in March of 2016, and it just launched in February of this year. We’re still working with the Appify team to expand several key features. We’re about 95% complete, and we’ll keep adding and tweaking based on feedback from our users. We currently have a contract with them through the end of 2017.

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

Most important is how the users feel about it. Our tutors are excited about the ease of use and the income potential the app gives them. The payment system is easy, and it’s built with college students in mind. Parents appreciate how the app gives them all the information they need to find a tutor for their high-school students.

We’ve already had over 220 tutoring sessions. We’ve done some tutoring boot camps. It’s growing very quickly, and we’re now preparing to speak with bigger companies about possible business opportunities. A lot of this is happening because Appify took what we wanted and made it happen in the smartest way possible.

How did Appify perform from a project management standpoint?

The project was broken up into timelines, and the Appify team was very good. I remember a couple of times when they said they wouldn’t sleep until they made a deadline. We were in contact with them until 3:00 am or 4:00 am. That level of commitment meant a lot to us.

We used Waffle.io as a project management tool. My co-founder tagged the features due on specific dates, and Phillip managed the project on their end. All we had to do was upload designs and explain them thoroughly, and he handled everything else.

What did you find most impressive about Appify?

Phillip is the most impressive aspect of Appify. He manages a lot of talented developers, but he is so technically sharp. He’s a fantastic entrepreneur and has great talent, commitment, and attitude. I would love to hire him full-time.

The team at Appify are top engineers in the U.S. They’re fair and honest, and they really want to see their clients do well. They got it done over and over again. I appreciate people who get things done the way they say they will.

Are there any areas Appify could improve?

No. If they want to expand, they could bring in more design talent, but they’re a great development team. 

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CEO of a mobile app helping college students build a valuable network for all of their academic needs.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was to quickly create a seamless and deployable minimum viable product (MVP).

How did you select this vendor?

They've got a great reputation in the industry, not only for outstanding development, but also for communication and efficiency.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

Appify developed our entire application. They took our concept and turned it into a legitimate product within a very short period of time.

What was the team composition?

Appify provided us with a project manager and two full-time developers.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

Our app was delivered ahead of time and surpassed our expectations for an initial MVP. It has allowed us to gain traction within universities.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We could contact our project manager at any time. He addressed our questions and concerns immediately.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We were impressed with the constant communication and rapid turnaround for any iterations we requested.

Are there any areas where they can improve?

We didn’t see any areas for improvement.