WillowTree®

BACKGROUND

What is your position within the university?

I’m the Director of Web Communications and Interactive Media in the Central Office of Development and Public Affairs.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your main objective for developing this application?

We were looking for our university to have a comprehensive mobile app that would be useful and of interest to a wide variety of groups, visitors, perspective students, fans of our sports and of course, students, alumni, faculty, and staff.

I’m assuming you didn’t have any internal mobile application developers for this project?

No. Unlike many universities, we are a pre-decentralized place. There were a couple of small ones that have been developed, but nothing significant.

SOLUTION

What was your process for selecting Willow Tree Apps to work with?

We put together a group of stakeholders—organizations around the university to talk about what we wanted to try to do. We began with the alumni association, student affairs, art group, obviously the technology management group, and variety of others. We talked about the scope of it and what we were looking to do. We looked at other major universities that had apps, and we looked at other major vendors. When we refined what we were actually looking for, over a couple of months, we put out an official word at the state university for a request for proposal. We invited proposals based on the criteria that we spelled out there.

They were located here in town, and we liked that. The bigger thing was that they had a wonderful presentation, and they had an excellent vision for what we could do with it. They went above and beyond what we stipulated, and they brought some creativity to it. They are technically and management-wise very proficient, and we were impressed by all of that. Aside from all of those particulars was that they really got the idea that we wanted to have something that was distinctive among colleges and universities, and they certainly answered that desire.

Could you tell me more about the scope of the project?

As we begin working with them, we were essentially meeting on a weekly basis, and a lot of email and context about the project management system was going back and forth. They were bringing new technologies that we hadn’t even considered such as the augmented reality. That wasn’t the proposal but as we went to do that, there was a lot of joint work between our group and their group. There was also an awful lot of work on their part to make the athletic section of it all work well; that was very distinctive. There were little functionality things that were cool, but we hadn’t really thought of, like having a variety of our fight songs and cheers on the app, which is like a really popular part of it

How long ago was the project completed?

Initially, we just went with an iPhone, or an iOS system, version in 2010. We contracted with them in May and launched in August of 2010. A year later, we launched an Android version, which they also built, so it’s just been the last two years.

Can you give me a general estimate for the cost of the project?

We’re a public university, so it’s something of a public nature. It was about $49,500. We had $50,000 initially, and then we had another $40,000 for the Android version.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How happy are you with the results of the project?

We’re very happy. A big part of this is that the various stakeholders are happy with the app, and that has certainly been the case around the university. Most indications we’ve had from comments on iTunes, direct communications we receive, is that people like it and its use has continued to grow. I haven’t looked at the stats in the last month or two, but we’re well over a million user sessions now. There are now over 20,000 users who have downloaded the file and the app.

When you’re working with Willow Tree Apps, is there anything that stood out as being unique compared to other development firms you may have worked in the past?

There are smaller firms, and we work with a lot of big enterprise type-vendors. We enjoyed that from a standpoint that it was very easy to reach the principals if we needed to. They weren’t involved in everything, but they were always right there and that was appreciated. It really felt like a partnership. They brought a fresh enthusiasm to the project. That was a great thing from our standpoint. They wanted to see it succeed, and they worked very hard to do that. They met their deadlines and all of those good things. It was a good partnership; sometimes the scope can creep, and the vendors can say that’s going to cost you more money, that kind of thing. We had very little of that in this project.

Do you think there’s any area that Willow Tree can improve or do slightly better in?

I’m reluctant to criticize anything. The result was very, very good. I’d say the one thing maybe was that it was down to the wire a little bit, but we knew it would be that way. The tight timeframe that we were demanding, and they met it. They handled it pretty well.

BACKGROUND

Can you briefly describe your company?

We are a leading online community for small businesses, based out of Columbus, Ohio.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What were your goals going into the project?

Since many of our users were accessing our online database through their mobile devices in remote locations, we wished to create a mobile application in order to deliver a better user experience. The application had to connect to our database of millions of companies, and make it easy for users to find critical information on the go.

SOLUTION

How did you discover WillowTree Apps?

We initially searched for mobile application developers locally in the Columbus area. Eventually, we began to look for a developer nationally and narrowed our search to five firms. We chose WillowTree Apps because they had a very good understanding our company's goals and objectives.

What technologies were used?

WillowTree Apps developed a mobile application for both iPhone and Android devices. The application makes use of a real-time database API integration, GPS integration, including maps, social media integration, and a mobile ad server.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Has the project met your original goals?

We are very pleased with the results. Since its launch, the iPhone application has consistently been a Top 20 Business App within iTunes, as well as listed by Apple within “What’s Hot” for Business iPhone apps.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Business operations, Business analyst

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire WillowTree®?

Website development

What were your goals for this project?

Timely delivery

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Google

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Website development

What was the team composition?

100

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

WillowTree® did good work

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Good work

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Good prices

Are there any areas for improvement?

None