on 8th July 2016
App Development for Roommate Matching Startup
Validated by:
There’s always a fear working with any company, whether it’s domestic or overseas. Konstant has been marvelous.
Schedule
Quality
Cost
Willing to refers
Overall Ratings
Project Summary
Konstant was able to provide a competitive price for the iOS app development partnership. Konstant Infosolutions was chosen over a local, in-house team and other offshore providers for their previous work in similar industries.
Feedback Summary
Proactivity, constructive feedback around strategy, and strong backend development are this client’s highlights for working with Konstant Infosolutions. The client additionally appreciates Konstant's flexibility and doesn't have suggestions for improvement at the price.
Background
It’s a small startup. It’s an app that allows roommates to find other roommates, and to find other rooms. It’s what we think of as a mixture of Tinder and Real Estate. I was originally a cofounder, and I’m the Chief Executive Officer of the startup.
Opportunity / Challenge
I was looking for a few engagements. I was looking for a company that could give me a good fixed price since there’s not a lot of money in being a startup. The intention was to have a team I could go back to and build up a relationship with after the initial minimum viable product. If the app does well, then I’ll have a partner that I can continue along with.
Solution
We just submitted the app to the Apple store. It’s cross platform, so it’s on Apple and Android. The intention is that we start with the Apple Store because they’re going to have more restrictions around what they expect. If it’s OK with them, then we’ll mirror that onto Android.
In March last year I had a look through some agencies. I’m in Sydney, so I was going through agencies that I knew through friends or other startups. Then I looked for app developers around Asia. I’d worked with some from Asia before. Then, I looked for any agencies that had good reviews on Google or other search engines. Initially, I worked with a database developer in-house. We brought it down to three or four different companies. Konstant was one of them. I found a few different websites that said they were reasonably good. I looked up companies they’d worked with on LinkedIn. I looked at how those companies were going, and that’s how I found them.
Between $80,000 and $90,000. In March last year [2015], Konstant was at the top of the list. Then we were able to get some internal developers to do the work instead because they took too long. I was struggling because a lot of the guys were part time, working full time in their own jobs but part time to me. Around September, I decided that I had to get it back out to outsourced developers again. It went back to Konstant and another one. By that time it came down to $50,000 to $55,000 instead. It was a reasonable amount for a small app.
Result & Feedback
It’s not released yet. I’m going to the presses now. I think it will come in August. Apple requested a few additional amendments. Those don’t have to do with Konstant - just design elements. I’ve worked with one of the companies I used to work for before I went to this startup. It was a company called Fairfax. It’s the big media company in Australia. We have a lot of apps through them. They own a lot of the popular apps from the media perspective - things like dating sites and home away. A lot of my colleagues and user testers are from there because I wanted to find people who actually understood apps. I did user testing with my mom and her friends and things like that. They couldn’t imagine that the app came from an overseas company who we’ve only worked with through phone conference and video conferences. The feedback is very positive.
There’s always a fear in working with any company, whether it’s domestic or overseas. Konstant has been marvelous. They’ve been proactive, but they’ve been pacing themselves around how quickly I and my team can work. They have been extremely engaged but not so much where they’ve only said yes to everything. They’ve also given positive criticism and been good at directing me. I don’t have a lot of skills in some of the areas. I did a lot of the design and front end stuff, but I have no idea on the back end part. So they did a lot of things without cost to look after me. They were also very flexible. We’re going through the review phase with Apple, and some things have come up that are part of the design, which Apple isn’t sure about. Konstant says that they’ll fix it for me. It’s been great.
No. I’ve worked with projects before so I’m used to have a lean, agile project where you hope the other team is able to work with you. My cofounder has never worked on a project with a company where you have everything signed off. It’s within the realm that hopefully they can do some things that we don’t know that we need. They’ve jumped on board and they’ve been so positive and proactive. They’re willing to move as fast as you want, but it’s up to you. The quicker you are the better they will be.
