YND

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a senior project manager for brand communication at a luxury watch manufacturer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with YND?

We needed their team to build our mobile application, which aimed to strengthen our relationship with our clients.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

YND has built our virtual try-on app from the ground up. They’ve developed features that enable our users to browse through our product catalogs, sort results based on their preferences, and virtually try on a watch of their choice to determine if it suits their style. Additionally, YND has handled the app’s UI/UX by organizing protocols, product images, and product-related articles and releases.

What is the team composition?

I have two main points of contact.

How did you come to work with YND?

Three agencies sent us a pitch for this project, including YND’s team. We chose them because they had the most reasonable price point, and their entire presentation was well-received by our team.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement with YND commenced in December 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

YND has developed a functional app that meets our design- and technical expectations. As a luxury product manufacturer, we appreciate how they’ve made our offerings more accessible to the public by creating a user-friendly and interactive platform to promote our goods.

How did YND perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate through regular meetings and bi-monthly sprint presentations. YND has a highly organized approach — they strategically allocate their time and resources to meet our targets on time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

YND says no to anything — we can give them the most challenging timelines and deliverables, and they’ll come up with the most creative solutions and workarounds to address those.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We can benefit from a more comprehensive scope. From my perspective, it helps to focus on the bigger picture of our project in order for us to set more realistic goals.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Try to build a roadmap of what you want to achieve before engaging them — or any team for that matter. Having a more structured and definitive scope is more advantageous than inserting new ideas now and then.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior manager of sales and analytics at Burger King Germany.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with YND?

Our mobile app was outdated, so we needed someone to redevelop a mobile app and implement a modern CRM tool for us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

YND developed our iOS and Android app; they took over the existing code of our current app and improved and rebuilt it, along with a CRM tool.

What is the team composition?

There were 6–10 people involved, including a project manager, the CTO, and a team of developers.

How did you come to work with YND?

They were recommended to us. We looked at other companies, but overall, YND was the best choice because they understood our business problems and offered quick solutions.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $3 million with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from June 2019–August 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were delighted with their work; they knew what they were doing from a coding perspective and understood our business model.

How did YND perform from a project management standpoint?

In terms of communication, we had weekly phone calls and meetings with the CTO twice a year. Regarding tools, we used Confluence and Jira.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were hands-on and solution-oriented — it was easy to work with them. They helped us find what was best for us and worked with us to solve any problem through a good solution.

Are there any areas they could improve?

During the project, we had some requirement changes, which made planning difficult from time to time. However, they always wanted to be professional and achieve perfect results and it took a bit more time but overall we couldn't be happier than we are with their final delivery.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I highly recommend working with them — they think fast and understand your business.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of SolutionFacts Consulting.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with YND?

The project we hired them for was a joint-venture in the security branch. YND was brought in to build a portal for security jobs and career possibilities. The idea was quite good, but no one in our company had experience building a platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The portal YND is developing is both a job page specialized in the security branch and a booking service for security services. The frontend is built in React, and the backend is built in Ruby on Rails.  

We wanted a partner that could bring us from the concept phase to the development one, and lots of things have changed since the beginning. Our idea has gotten way bigger and more complex.

What is the team composition?

This depends on the stage we’re working on. We’ve had a team of 3–7 people from YND, depending on what we needed.

How did you come to work with YND?

We were looking for a Berlin-based company that could develop the platform we had in mind, for the budget we had. We wanted the ability to work closely and have brainstorming sessions.

We mainly searched within our internal contact pool, checking for vendors with experience building platforms. YND was one of the companies recommended to us, and they reacted extremely fast when we contacted them. The other company we had on the list was in Hamburg, 300 kilometers away, so still not that far.

In the end, the package from YND was a perfect fit for us. They definitely had the best mix of everything. They were local, so we had the possibility to meet quite often, and they were willing to help us get from an idea to a complete product.

They offered their experience to get our idea on track, their pricing was very good for us, and their availability was also a factor. They had the time to start when we wanted, and they were happy to do it. It was simply a good fit. Possibly, the most important point was that we just had a good feeling while talking to the people there.

How much have you invested with them?

The total project cost so far is around $300,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with YND around June 2019, and we plan to continue the collaboration for the long-term.

The first development phase was set to finish by early-2020, but we’re planning to be done with the main development by the beginning of 2021. We will of course continue with a service agreement. When we’re done with the platform, we will continue to request features; we’ll never stop development.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The quality is simply amazing. We’re just the people who need to get this done with YND, and the people from the board and the holding company are the ones who will judge it in the end. They’re all perfectly happy.

How did YND perform from a project management standpoint?

We’re working with them in Basecamp, to track progress and releases, and to put in tasks and feature requests. We also use Jira from time to time. We prefer to just control releases, set deadlines, and just see the outcomes. It’s maybe not the most professional approach, but it was easier for us. The basic idea has changed a lot, and it’s still evolving live.

If there were any delays in development, it was because we changed the idea. YND offered us a tool where we could monitor better, but we didn’t use it. Everything we’ve done has been in an agile form.  

I have a weekly call with the project manager responsible for us, and everything else is communicated through Basecamp. This is perfect for me because it helps me avoid unneeded meetings and excessive emailing. It’s definitely the best way to work together.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We have a customer relationship manager on YND’s side, whom we can talk to about anything. We put all our requests and wishes through him, and we have regular calls. He’s there for us for everything, and they’re also keen on helping us with other stuff. If there’s something on the side that has nothing to do with the main development, and if YND has the knowledge to get it done faster than we could, they’ll just do it. Our way of working together is amazingly good. They’re really interested in the project, and they’re leveraging their experience to help us save money. That’s quite unique. They not only do what we ask for; they use their outside perspective to give us better alternatives. This has helped us prevent what I’d call “beginner failures”.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. I think that the collaboration is good for us as it is. Usually, even when a project is going well, I can identify parts that could be done better. In this case, YND did way more than they had to based on the contract. They’re really pushing us forward and helping us.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Listen to them and try to learn from their experience.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of Dinie, and we provide on-demand capital for small businesses in Brazil.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with YND?

We relied on YND to develop our MVP. They also did all of our branding and design work.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They conducted our branding from scratch — they came up with our name, our color schemes, and logos. They even identified our corporate personality and target audience. They maintained consistency with these visual elements in designing our website and developing the actual app.

The app allows small businesses to apply for loans. They ensured that both the design and functionality of the platform were high-caliber.

What is the team composition?

I worked with around 10 people.

How did you come to work with YND?

I met them through a conference in Munich called Digital Life Design. They were showcasing a product they’d developed for another client. I had already secured a US-based vendor to take on my project, but after meeting them, I had to switch.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent somewhere between $100,000–$250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around February of 2019, and the project is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their work has been extremely high-quality. From a technical perspective, they’re truly extraordinary.

They also showcased an amazing level of commitment from the earliest brainstorming and specification phases. They’ve felt like partners, as opposed to mere providers.

They’re extremely flexible at all times. They’ve truly worked with us, and we’ve learned from them in the process. They really bring you in to be a part of their work. There was an interchange of ideas before we launched into actual implementation, which reflected the extent of our collaboration.

How did YND perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re flawless on this front. We used both Trello and Atlassian.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was most impressed by their collaborative skill. They brought us into their office to work with them. There were high-level discussions that demonstrated their genuine interest in our business. You never feel like you’re just offloading your development to another company because they become your true partner throughout the process. Their partnership approach is truly outstanding.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could be stricter in terms of making us stick to a deadline. We want a partner to help us become tougher on ourselves because it affects our overall schedule if we’re lax about our progress.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Try to ideate together. Don’t go into it thinking that you’re simply outsourcing. Be 100% involved in the process.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

At the time of the collaboration with YND, I was a program manager responsible for launching a new fast payment solution at Lufthansa AirPlus.

AirPlus is part of the Lufthansa group, and it provides a corporate payment solution for travel expenses. I was in charge of launching a new app-based product within the company, aimed at paying for business meals.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with YND?

They helped us develop the payment solution.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

YND designed and built the MVP version of the solution, and provided support implementing the solution at restaurants. The platform has a Stripe integration.

What is the team composition?

There was a core team of five people involved, though not everyone was full-time.

How did you come to work with YND?

They were referred to us by a partner company that had successfully launched different projects with them.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost for development and support was €300,000 (approximately $330,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with YND between September 2016–December 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

As a corporation, we had no clue as to how to go about building a platform that connected restaurants and users. YND’s involvement was excellent. They were fast from the beginning, proactive in delivering their services, and super reactive in terms of support. Their efforts were extremely appreciated by our IT experts. 

In our view, YND is much more than a development agency. They delivered a turnkey MVP to us, which has been highly valuable.

How did YND perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management skills were exceptional — they basically taught us how to work. We had daily reporting, and we worked in sprints. YND was organized with the most recent agile techniques. We used the Atlassian suite.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their ability to frame ideas into actionable items to develop is outstanding. They then offer reliable prioritization and fast execution. 

We started our engagement by asking them to develop a payment solution for restaurants. We gave them a blank sheet of paper, and they created wireframes and stories. They’ve done a great job educating us as a corporation. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could benefit from framing their value proposition in a better way, from a marketing standpoint. When we go on their website, it’s not obvious that they can provide turnkey solutions. Making themselves more visible and clearer on what they can offer would be a plus for them.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

My advice is to simply trust YND. We always wonder whether we’ll get value for money, and the beginning was challenging in this sense. They’re good advisers, and we can trust them, which is not something I could say for every app development agency.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a product manager at Orderbird AG. I’m responsible for our payment product and Android app. We’re a POS company providing a cloud-based solution for iPads.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with YND?

In early-2019, we realized that there was potential in the market for “smart payment terminals” on Android. We brainstormed a bit and made a quick project plan, but we quickly realized that we didn’t have any Android development knowledge in-house. Because this was a new project, we didn’t want to hire any developers, so we got in touch with YND.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

YND really loved the project, and started working on the vision and pitch deck with us. 

The Android app includes POS features like boking items, closing a business day, and printing receipts. There’s something called “fiscalization” in Germany, so there’s a technical security entity that has to be built into the POS software. They took care of that aspect as well. 

They created the main design parts, and they had a good understanding of the UI/UX.

What is the team composition?

We started with three people on their side, we got up to five people at a certain point, but we’re back to three fulltime people now.

I was working on a different project initially, then stepped into this one. I quickly realized that I couldn’t handle the technical product ownership, so YND stepped in and gave us a technical product owner on their side.

How did you come to work with YND?

We’d done some projects with them in the past, and we had very good experiences. For this project, we didn’t even think about hiring another agency. They knew our products, and we knew them already, so we went for them.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost of this project until the end of 2020 will be €420,000 (approximately $459,000 USD). 

What is the status of this engagement?

The official start was May 2019, and the collaboration is ongoing. We have a finished app that we’re already selling, but we still don’t have in-house Android engineers, so we’ve asked YND to maintain and further develop the app for us on a long-term basis.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Working with them was really easy and good. We shared the same vision from day one, and it felt more like YND belonged to our company rather than being a third-party vendor. 

The product is meeting the expectations of our customers. We were planning to sell 45 devices, and we’ve sold around 60 so far. I can’t say specifically whether that’s because the product is so great or because our sales team is so great, but I’ve talked with a lot of customers, and they were really happy with the product and with how easy everything is. It’s an absolute success for us.

How did YND perform from a project management standpoint?

They have very good planning and delivery processes. They typically deliver everything that is planned for a sprint. There have been just a few cases where something needed to be taken to the next sprint. I pulled the launch date to an earlier time at some point, and they made it happen. 

They made sure that we’d deliver what we promised to our customers, to our investors, and internally, and they did that perfectly. I realized at some point that I didn’t have enough resources to be a good technical product manager, so they got one of their people to do it.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The most impressive thing about them is how they share our vision and are so invested in our work. They poured their hearts and minds into designing a good setup and taking the right measures. They came up with the idea to copy our backend for development so that our running business wouldn’t be affected by what we were doing with the new product. We had a very good development environment. 

They didn’t do this for us – we did it together.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I couldn’t say. I’d describe it as a perfect experience. There were a few bugs, but we expected that. Running a product in a test environment is always different than having it out to customers, with different use cases. Overall, there was a very limited number of bugs, and YND fixed them right away.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I don’t think that they’re cheap, but we also didn’t compare prices. They do the full project with the customer. They don’t just take user stories and transform them into a product. They actually write the stories with us, thinking about them, and making suggestions.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of R&D for Quantego. We develop software for the energy industry and work on algorithm modeling.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with YND?

We did not have in-house frontend developers and needed to deliver a web application for a client. We hired YND to develop the app’s frontend.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We provided the initial plans and YND designed the UI in an iterative process. They then developed the backend functionality on Python using the application layer we had supplied. Next, YND delivered a prototype. The team did testing and revisions before delivering the final version.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a project manager, one UX designer, and two developers.

How did you come to work with YND?

I received a referral and reached out to YND. The team responded quickly to schedule a phone call. During that conversation, we explained the project requirements and goals. Their mature approach and organized pipelines impressed us. We hired them because they would guide us through the whole process.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from October–November 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The app satisfied our specifications for functionality and design. Without YND, we couldn’t have completed the build. Their team enabled us to deploy a frontend for optimization code to our client.

How did YND perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated via Slack, Basecamp, and video conferences. YND switched between the tools smoothly, depending on which platform was more appropriate for the issues and resources at hand. The team’s professionalism, organization, and communication skills were particularly impressive.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Although I haven’t worked with many frontend development vendors, YND was better than the others partners I had previously engaged.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. YND exceeded our expectations for quality. The team was responsive and delivered on time.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don’t hesitate to send them a message. Their quick replies benefited our project’s short timeline.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO at RaceChip Chiptuning. We produce small systems that increase the power output of any car and truck. I’m responsible for all the software development, which includes our mobile apps that help people to fine tune the product to their car.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with YND?

We previously had a partner that handled several modifications and changes to the system during the lifecycle of our products. Over time, the app, as well as the API to our product, became very unstable and hard to maintain.

The agency wasn’t able to keep up with the development, which caused the software to malfunction. The mobile app had been in the market for several years, and every new version of our hardware and every additional change to the app made it worse and worse until there were too many problems with it. We needed another vendor’s help.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

YND identified the problems in our app and made it usable. The product is still in the market, with multiple releases on both iOS and Android. They wanted to develop a new product from scratch, so that’s currently in plans, but as of now, we’re discussing the details for the newest version of the app.

On the current version, both applications are native, written in C and Java. They’ve handled changes and continuous integration very nicely. According to our wishes, everything is running on our premises; it was remotely set up and they’ve included testing frameworks. They also incorporated New Relic as a warning system, so whenever apps are crashing or not installing properly, we get statistics. We can also see if any new versions of iOS or Android are causing problems somewhere in the world.

We have one standard piece of hardware that plugs into a car’s computer. The hardware gets fine-tuned to each specific car, motor, and year. The application contacts our server and the server then sends the specifics to the device through the mobile app, which is all very well encrypted. Once the initial setup is done, the app turns into a feature that allows people to update our tuning chip over the internet. It connects through Bluetooth and can change the drive settings. If it’s set to race mode, the car will have 30% more horsepower, or if the car owner is a bit short on cash, then it can be switched to eco-mode for saving fuel while cruising.

YND has incorporated all these configurations. They’ve managed the connections on all sides to the servers and to the Bluetooth. The challenge is mostly for it to be compatible with all Android and iOS devices that we support.

 What is the team composition?

They have a project manager assigned to us and several developers, including lead developers on Android and iOS.

How did you come to work with YND?

We have a common acquaintance who recommended YND. We challenged them to take over from our previous partner to resolve the issues we faced and to improve the codebase so that it’s maintainable. After our preliminary conversations with them, we realized how good they were. We had a test run and everything went great.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2016 and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The app is free and supplementary to our products. It wasn’t working when they started, but they fixed it. They also solved the many problems that came along when Android devices updated, such as the security on the Bluetooth stack which came from Android 6 updating to Android 7. This pretty much broke our app on all mobile devices. They warned us beforehand when changes were coming and said that they were willing to look into it and go beyond the normal maintenance contract, which has been very helpful.

Overall, YND has taken full responsibility for the app and our metrics are now much better. Whenever something’s not working, I don’t have to explain it to them; they’ll actually apologize for not noticing it on their own. They’ve done a really good job.

How did YND perform from a project management standpoint?

They manage their own sprints and software lifecycle, but they include me in the whole process, keeping me up-to-date on things. Project management, planning, and internal structuring are all done by YND.

All project management is done in Germany, and it’s all very accurate and well planned ahead. There’s a bit of a communication gap between the office in Berlin and the office in Poland, which handles the development, but it doesn’t affect us. Deadlines aren’t always completed as planned, but they’re always transparent and deliver great quality. I know ahead of time if they aren’t going to make it thanks to their quick feedback.

Phone calls are their preferred way of communication, but since I like email, they’ve adjusted to my preferences.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They do everything from project management to hardware development, which makes them completely reliable. Out of the many mobile development companies I’ve worked with, they are certainly the most experienced developers. There’s so much internal knowledge at their disposal. Their staff includes specialists and architects, and their senior staff is as sharp as they come.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The communication issue can be slightly frustrating when things get lost in the forwarding process. We now have a communication triangle where I can contact the developers in Poland directly just to make sure this doesn’t happen. It would be nicer to get everything physically from one person that keeps you updated all the time, though.

Furthermore, if it was my company, I’d try to advertise myself a bit more. I know they’re great, but none of my fellow CTOs here in Munich have heard of them. They’re actually surprised when I tell them they’re really good and that they have big clients.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to trust them. I came to them with burnt fingers from the last agency, so I tried to micromanage, control them way too much, and be restrictive on what they can and should do. YND knows their stuff, probably better than anyone does when it comes to mobile development.