4IRE LABS

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our company does web widgets and native iOS and Android app development. We’re essentially a booking platform that is starting out by offering services for hair stylists, yoga instructors, etc. I am the founder and CEO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Seductive Mobile?

We built the Android app, the API, and database, basically the Android backend, and we needed someone to build the iOS version, so we hired Seductive Mobile to do that.

SOLUTION

How did you come to work with Seductive Mobile?

It was a referral from a referral. I was referred by a friend here in Sweden to a web development company in Ukraine when I contacted them about doing the iOS version. The Ukraine company referred us to Seductive Mobile. I guess they work pretty closely together. We had decided to give them a chance early on, and then we followed up with sprints. We were happy with their progress after the first sprint, so we decided to continue working with them.

How much have you invested with Seductive Mobile?

We’ve invested about $15,000 or $16,000 with Seductive Mobile.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project isn’t complete yet. We started working with them around July 2016, and we’ve been working on it for about six months. We have about a month to go, so it [the initial engagement] is nearing completion. Then we'll work on a continuous basis.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It’s a fairly complex product, but we haven't yet found anything that Seductive Mobile hasn’t been able to solve. We’re confident they can execute all the functions we want and in an expedient manner. They’re also quick to understand what we want.

How did Seductive Mobile perform from a project management standpoint?

Very well. I think they’re very organized. We say what we want to accomplish, and they divide the work into sprints. They have a lot of freedom in doing that, and it’s worked pretty well for us. It’s convenient for us too, because we don't need to micromanage them. I mainly interact with their project manager in signing contracts, paying bills, and setting sprints, but my CTO works closely with their developers via Skype.

What did you find most impressive about Seductive Mobile?

When we sent our nearly complete Android version to them, they took a look at it and improved some of the solutions we had envisioned for the iOS version. They understand what we’re aiming for and improve upon our ideas, and we appreciate that. It’s not just a mechanical thing for them. They’ll think outside the box and make sure that you accomplish your goal and not just the pure metrics of it.

Are there any areas Seductive Mobile could improve?

If I have to say something negative, and I don't know how unique this is to Seductive Mobile, but it’s a little confining to work in a sprint structure. You set the stuff you need for the next two weeks or so, and then they go ahead and build it. But sometimes, you think up new ideas and want to change things midstream, and that’s not as easy to do if you don’t have the guy who can do it sitting next to you in your office. In that sense, it’s a little rigid. That has more to do with doing long-distance work as opposed to something specific to Seductive Mobile.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We provide a sales management tool designed to increase productivity, closing ratios, and revenue for the merchant services field in the US. With just a few mouse clicks, our solution provides access to vital information for making the best management decisions in real-time.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Seductive Mobile?

I had a patented idea for our mobile application and needed help making it better.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Seductive Mobile has built the iOS version of my app. We're planning to expand its features and also build an Android version, but the scope has been kept low in order to stick to my budget.

The app can interface with Salesforce AppExchange but it's not featured on the actual store. Given that my app requires a large number of customizations, I couldn't see it sitting on a shelf as a ready-made solution.

How did you come to work with Seductive Mobile?

I used another development company initially, but I actually had to get my money back. They didn't know what they were doing. I made a Google search for top application developers and found an article from Forbes magazine listing 10 to 20 options. I called 3 to 4 and decided to hire Seductive Mobile.

How much have you invested with Seductive Mobile?

The cost of Seductive Mobile's services has been close to $10,000. I plan to spend another $10,000 on enhanced features.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with Seductive Mobile in April 2016. I'm currently in negotiations with a company interested in using our product, so we've been developing specific changes to the product based on their requests. I am planning to expand the product by a large extent, but I need time.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Seductive Mobile has been night and day compared to my previous developer. Based on the demo I showed them, Seductive Mobile was able to make my idea much better. I have reached out to a few potential clients and found someone interested in moving forward based on our demo.

How did Seductive Mobile perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated a lot through Skype video conferences and via phone. Seductive Mobile was always available for my calls. I was included in the team's conversations, allowing me to request changes quickly. Seductive Mobile has moved very fast, finishing the initial phase in 30 days instead of the original quote of 2 months.

What did you find most impressive about Seductive Mobile?

I like Seductive Mobile's team; they're a pleasure to work with.

Are there any areas Seductive Mobile could improve?

Not based on my experience.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder and CEO of Vork, Inc., a mobile app developer. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Seductive Mobile?

Our challenge was building the MVP [minimum viable product] of the app, a working product I could go to market with. The app is for business social networking, LinkedIn meets Tinder. I've designed technology that can turn any piece of content into something like a Tinder card, but not just people matching used by dating apps. It has a machine learning system that automatically matches up people to requests for help, information, or projects, etc. You get a stream of cards that come at you, then you can say yes or no. I needed to have a UX mockup about how the app would function and what the screens would look like. Then I need to have the app built to work on iOS and Android.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Seductive Mobile built the native iOS and native Android app. They used Node.js as the development language, Postgres SQL as the database, and Google Cloud as the hosting platform. That was what they had committed to me in the proposal.

How did you come to work with Seductive Mobile?

One of my colleagues recommended them since he had worked with them for 2 years. I was recommended them next by a Ukrainian venture capitalist who had work done for one of his companies and was very happy. Seductive was 1 of 8 vendors that I sent a request for proposal to, and their response was the best. The price, even for Ukraine, was very reasonable and was lower than other prices that had been quoted from that country. Their UX person and the chief technology officer were accessible and had good language skills. They follow Agile and used tools like Atlassian's JIRA and Confluence. These gave us confidence in their ability to manage the project. Also, we started off with a first sprint that was a very low price for doing UX design. That gave both of us an opportunity to work with each other for very low risk.

How much have you invested with Seductive Mobile?

We’ve paid $65,000 for their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in July 2016. In 2017, we are changing our relationship with them, moving from a fixed price sprint model to a dedicated team.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

So far, I was able to use the UX model they had developed to raise money. We stuck to the budget. We're not too far off the time, as well. We expanded the scope slightly, so we're pretty much on track for time. We're in alpha version in December, according to plan. We're finishing off the bugs, and it will go to our alpha users imminently. We'll see very quickly how people are using it.

How did Seductive Mobile perform from a project management standpoint?

Seductive Mobile has done very well. They're very responsive and open to suggestions. They're also organized and they deliver. We're following the Agile method, which means we're following Scrum. They've attended the daily stand-up where everyone says very quickly what they're doing. We aren't physically in the office. It's very inconvenient for me because I need people working in totally different time zones to be on the call at the same time. When we realized that we were missing information we shared on the calls—it was causing us more work because we weren't aware of what they were just about to do—they put their stand-up information into our shared Slack channel. We get the same content as the people in the room get as soon as it's available.

What did you find most impressive about Seductive Mobile?

They were able to translate the entrepreneur and team vision into working products. These products were built within the time and budget.

Are there any areas Seductive Mobile could improve?

Not particularly. I'm an experienced entrepreneur, so any area that had an issue was pretty much fixed immediately. The fix has remained in place. They're still very proactive, so there's nothing bad that they're doing.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

The company I work for is in graphic design services. We serve people that send in their personal photographs, primarily selfies. I have a team of designers that can do any custom changes they want. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Seductive Media?

We built an app that allows people to send in their photos digitally.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Right now, it’s a native iOS app. Seductive Media pretty much did it soup to nuts. We had pitched out rough specs and hand drawings, really rough wireframes, while they did the detailed wireframe. They were responsible for the design and the development of the app and the backend system which the designers use to access the app.

How did you come to work with Seductive Media?

We looked at quite a few companies. We looked at a lot of review websites and I think I found them through Clutch. Clutch was one of the sites that gave us the opportunity to do a quick screen of a lot of different companies and filter it to 4 or 5. Then we had conversations with each of them and got quotes from each of them.

One of the reasons I chose them is they seem to have pretty good reviews. I wanted someone that was in the right price range—they weren’t the cheapest, but they’re pretty well priced. I’ve had apps built in India before and had a very bad experience with that, so I wanted someone based in Europe and they fit that profile. Another thing is because we’re a startup, we wanted a company that wasn’t too big. We wanted to be meaningful enough that we would get the proper attention. They checked all the boxes of our criteria.

How much have you invested with Seductive Media?

We’ve spent $20,000 to $30,000 on this project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We only just launched the first version of it a couple of weeks ago. We’re continuing to work with them now on a second version.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were very satisfied. In terms of speed and pragmatism, they’re very good. They got stuff done in a well-designed way without too many bugs off the bat. I think they’d be good to work with. The app worked pretty well. There were a couple of small hiccups along the way, but not major things.

How did Seductive Media perform from a project management standpoint?

It was very good.  We don’t have any complaints there. They’re quite responsive and they stick to timelines. It probably went a little bit over, but not drastically. I think the timeline was 2 to 3 months and it probably took around 4 months.

What did you find most impressive about Seductive Media from other providers?

They are pretty pragmatic and solution-oriented as opposed to some of the experiences I had working with Indian developers. If you tell them what you’re trying to achieve, they might suggest an alternate way of doing it.

Are there any areas Seductive Media could improve?

They probably don’t invest quite enough in bug testing post production. I think they dedicate 2 days as their standard user testing. I felt like they hadn’t found a lot of the bugs that my team found when we used the app ourselves. Perhaps they’re doing more testing but the customer is not aware of it. It would be worthwhile showing customers what’s going on in terms of the bug fixing. If you don’t see what’s happening, you assume it’s not happening. Perhaps they’re finding thousands of bugs and we’re finding the last 10% that they didn’t find. I never really witnessed any bug testing. It would be worthwhile if they did a half-week or weeklong bug testing that the client was privy to and involved with. That way, we’re confident that the app is 100% bug-free before release.

There was also 1 tiny issue we had over the summer holidays; everyone was out at the same time. We were trying to launch right when everyone was on holiday. And it was a bit frustrating for a week or so. But it’s unfair to criticize them for that because they were very good normally on the whole. They’re a small company and sometimes they don’t have the bandwidth to take on projects when you need them to. That’s understandable.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are an IT services company that specializes in customer communication management systems. Our primary product is called SmartDocuments. I am the Chief Executive Officer of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Seductive?

We wanted to make it possible for our clients to create template-based documents on a mobile device. The practical business use would be when a worker visits a customer site, he/she would be able to add data and signatures on site, instead of having to do all that back in the office.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We asked Seductive Mobile to develop the app first for the Android platform using Agile project management techniques. After the success of the Android project, we asked them to move on to the iOS version.

How did you come to work with Seductive Mobile?

We selected a few companies for mobile development and visited them. We had the best meeting with Seductive Mobile. They are young, have good experience, and speak excellent English.

How much have you invested with Seductive Mobile?

For a native mobile app on two platforms with an interactive website, the cost was between $50,000 and $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Both projects lasted around 6 months. The Android version took the second half of 2015. The iOS version was slightly faster and was completed over the first four months of 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our test consumers have been enthusiastic about the project. However, the majority of our expected clients will be government agencies, who are not too fast in their decision making. We’ve spent the last three months marketing the app to them, and are planning to start with our first two customers in the summer [2016]. The apps are an add-on to our server software and enable client workers to go to their customers’ homes, fill in some details, and let the customer sign. No printing or scanning is needed. This will ultimately save our customers time and money.

What did you find most impressive about Seductive Mobile?

This was one of my first true outsourcing projects, and I have to say Seductive Mobile really impressed me. I liked the flexibility and speed of their communication; they also have rockstars in design and usability. All of these areas are some of the most difficult to find in foreign companies. So we are very happy.

Are there any areas Seductive Mobile could improve?

I can’t think of anything.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a software development house based in Germany that specializes in building powerful OCR [optical character recognition] and ICR [intelligent character recognition] software kits. Our technology can easily be integrated into mobile apps to allow us to recognize a user's handwriting.

What is your position?

I am the CMO [chief marketing officer] of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Seductive Mobile?

Our expertise is in developing OCR and ICR technology. We do not have much expertise in more common development languages, such as Java or .NET. This is why we chose to work with Seductive.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

There were two main challenges that Seductive helped us with. The first, and most important, was to assist us with building a framework that could integrate our product into a mobile app. It was a framework that would connect our software with the iOS platform.

The other task was to design and develop a simple iOS app that we could use as a test app to demonstrate our product to potential clients and investors.

How did you come to work with Seductive Mobile?

I found them online. I'm not sure how exactly.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

It was around $10,000.

What was the timeline of this engagement?

It started maybe around the middle of January [2016]. Seductive's portion of the work only lasted about two weeks. They were very fast.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any results or success metrics from this engagement?

The project only wrapped up in the last few weeks, so while I can verify the quality of Seductive's work and that it was delivered on time and on budget, I can't share any success metrics or anything like that.

What distinguishes Seductive Mobile from other providers?

Seductive Mobile is a young and smart team, and because they're trying to grow their business quickly, you feel like you're getting their best all the time. They are very responsive in terms of answering questions and making changes. There were no problems in terms of quality of work or documentation.

Is there anything Seductive Mobile could have improved or done differently?

They have done a quite good job, so I'm not sure where they can improve. I suppose they could increase the number of languages and platforms they're able to develop on, but they're a young team, and I'm sure that will come with time.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

SwipeIn is a mobile app that allows software engineers to notify technical recruiters that they are available for a new job.

What is your role at the company?

I am the chief executive officer and founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Seductive Mobile?

I needed to find a team that would provide me with excellent mobile app development services at competitive prices.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

The scope of the project was to build a mobile recruitment app that would use real-time data streams to allow both candidates and recruiters to interact with each other. The primary technologies used were Swift, Objective-C, and Parse.

How did you come to work with Seductive Mobile?

I contacted a few companies and shortlisted three – two from the Ukraine and one from India. I had a few chats with each of them to understand what their approach would be to my project. Seductive struck a chord in me because they were very professional and knew the recruitment industry quite well.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

I've spent somewhere between $15,000 and $25,000 working with Seductive.

What was the timeline of the project?

The total project took about 90 days.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The results were absolutely great. The mobile app is very stable and rarely crashes. The functionality of the app is complex, but Seductive built it very quickly on time and budget. They always provided a very close, friendly, and professional approach throughout the whole project.

How did Seductive Mobile perform from a project management standpoint?

Seductive gets things done very quickly. Their knowledge of cutting-edge mobile technologies is just superior to other companies. They have a superior technical team, and their project management team is very professional and informative, making sure the project is on time and budget. They always put the customer first.

In hindsight, are there areas in which they could improve or things you might do differently?

Not really. I have not had a single bad experience with them. From day one until this very day, their level of professionalism and technical skills has been outstanding.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a spinoff company from a university and work on basic technology in the areas of computer vision and augmented reality. Unlike major players in AR software framework development, we work on niche solutions that are not addressed by the mainstream solution providers.

What is your role in the company?

I'm the chief executive officer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Seductive Mobile?

We wanted to develop mobile applications that would serve as marketing tools for us, helping us enter the market and become more widely known.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

The scope was to develop mobile applications around a core technology provided by us. We wanted to make a compelling product for our intended customers. Seductive provided the application design, testing, prototyping, and user interface design competence to achieve this goal.

How did you come to work with Seductive Mobile?

I got their contact through a colleague and simply contacted them with my idea.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

I would guess that personnel work hours were in the range of 300 to 400 hours. Regarding money, the project cost somewhat less than $10,000.

What was the timeline of the project?

The project took about a month from start to completion – with a couple of weeks out for the Christmas holiday season.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What distinguishes Seductive Mobile from other providers?

They were very professional and reacted with amazing responsiveness, something I had not encountered previously. This responsiveness was great because it helped us move forward quickly.

In hindsight, are there areas in which they could improve or things you might do differently?

Honestly, any shortcomings we encountered should be attributed to our own lack of planning. But, overall, those problems were minor and did not cause much harm.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

SiteMost is based in Brisbane, Australia, and provides web hosting, web development, and search marketing solutions to our clients.  

What is your role at the company?

I'm director of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Seductive?

We recently started offering app development solutions to our clients and were looking for a partner to help with the development process.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

We have worked with Seductive on multiple jobs now, and the scope has varied depending on our clients' requirements.

How did you come to work with Seductive?

We approached a number of app development companies with proposals, and we were most impressed with Seductive's response and how knowledgeable they were about the mobile app market.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

So far, the total amount of the jobs we've done with Seductive has been between $10,000 and $50,000

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Seductive in March 2015 and, as the projects we're doing with them are agile, there is no fixed completion date for the projects. Each sprint lasts an average of two weeks to a month.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

As mentioned previously, the projects that we have been working with Seductive are all agile and still being developed further. However, our clients are very impressed with the work so far and one of the startup clients was able to use the prototype built by Seductive to gain additional funding.

What distinguishes Seductive from other providers?

The best part of working with Seductive has been their flexibility. They have been willing to work with us in whatever way best fits our clients. In some instances, this has meant that they provide us with a lot of extra information that they probably normally wouldn't need to do for other clients. This has been a huge benefit to us because we had very little experience with app development.

In hindsight, are there areas in which they could improve or things you might do differently?

As app development is quite new to us, there are a number of processes that we still need to perfect. This isn't anything negative with Seductive, but there are a few things that could certainly be improved.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are in the tech e-commerce space. We are developing our own technology that will totally automate the e-commerce process to ensure customers are getting the lowest prices possible on products.

What is your position?

I am the co-CEO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Seductive?

We needed an Android app, we already have an iOS app. We had a lack of resources of developers, so we needed a really fast solution to develop an Android app that was the same quality as our in-house developed iOS app.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

Seductive was responsible for everything. The scope included design, frontend and backend, deployment, Google Store placement, etc. They even did the testing.

How did you come to work with Seductive?

I learned about Seductive through the recommendation of one of my friends. In the selection process, we talked to a couple of CEOs, and in the end we chose Seductive because they had the best combination of being easy to work with as well as very professional.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

It was somewhere between $20,000 and $50,000.

What was the timeline of the project?

We started in December 2014 and finished up in March of 2015.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the results of the project? Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

It actually worked a bit better than our iOS app, so that was good. As for the key metrics, they were the same as our in-house developed app, or a bit better. The app is totally stable, we didn’t have any issues with it.

There were a couple of issues we wanted to optimize, and they handled most of those issues within the same budget that was agreed on in the beginning. After the final delivery date they did not drop off the map like some companies. Any bugs were fixed in a timely manner.

How did Seductive perform from a project management standpoint?

They did weekly reports, they gave us weekly videos of the progress, and showed us screens. They delivered on time, exactly on the day when we were supposed to be done, which is quite rare. We were very happy with that.

What distinguishes Seductive from other providers?

The reason why we chose to work with Seductive is because they are very execution-driven. They're committed to giving their clients results, and do not like trying to upsell or cross-sell just to make a little more money. They’re very entrepreneurial, and they really deliver. They are not a typical outsourcing agency; they work more like an in-house team, which I really enjoyed. I’ve recommended them many times, and the people to whom I’ve recommended Seductive were very happy as well.

Is there anything Seductive could have improved or done differently?

It would be quite nice if they would have a European entity, as this would solve the issues regarding the money transfers and having to convert Euros.