Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of development for the app studio. The company, WildTangent, is primarily a publisher of games for desktop, PCs, and mobile devices.

What challenge were you trying to address with Cayugasoft Technologies?

Our company uses a combination of internal resources to really drive some of our products and then we rely on external partners, whether it’s for engineering, art, music, or sound, to really help add additional resources to our teams in an affordable manner. It’s a combination of additional resources but also affordable resources.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The platform is mainly mobile games for Android and iOS apps. We mainly used Unity 3D, a game development platform. That’s where we do most of our mobile apps with Android and iOS. Recently, we’ve been doing some web development using HTML5. Cayugasoft Technologies has helped us over the last few months with some HTML5 game development. That would be both for web browsers and for native mobile apps for Android and iOS.

I would typically have a project manager on their side helping to oversee with scheduling and language translations. Usually, it’s between 1 to 3 developers that we work with, but we kind of scale up and down as needed, based on the amount of projects we have.

How did you come to work with Cayugasoft Technologies?

They reached out to me initially when I was at a different company, an independent game studio. I was vetting a few outsourced vendor development studios. Cayugasoft is based out of New York, so they have a domestic presence. I felt really comfortable with them over some of the other companies initially. You’re making a guess, so to speak, on which one is the best and so far it’s worked out great. More or less, this is the third company I’ve been with that I’ve worked with Cayugasoft on, so I’m a return user for sure.

How much have you invested with Cayugasoft Technologies?

We have invested between $10,000 and $50,000. We’ve done a number of projects, but our last 2 projects with them were 2 different apps across a couple of different platforms. I would say they were both in the $15,000 range each.

What is the status of this engagement?

It’s been about a year that we started. We’ve released 3 products in the year, so each product that we’ve done has taken somewhere around 3 to 4 months to complete. We completed our third project with them just before the holidays. The work is ongoing as needed. At least in this role that I’m in, we sign up for 3 months’ worth of work, so we plan ahead for 3 months and we sign a work agreement, and then we reassess every 3 months. That’s generally how it’s been. It’s not a written rule or anything like that.

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

We have a blackjack game that Cayugasoft did all the development on. Right now, it has 300,000 downloads over a 6 to 9-month period. It’s only been out for 6 months, which is pretty good for a year without a lot of marketing. It’s really organic. We’ve had at least 3 times ROI [return on investment] on our blackjack game. That’s been pretty positive. We have just released some other games more recently that are still growing at this point.

How did Cayugasoft Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is really good. I’ve worked with 3 different project managers throughout this period. It’s been about 5 years since I’ve been working with Cayugasoft. The current project manager has been there over 2 years. She’s great. Generally speaking, they are based out of the Ukraine but they speak great English. They are very organized, punctual, and really know what they are talking about and have a sense of what’s going on a little bit more technically than most. They’re very on point and easy to talk to.

I know they use JIRA. We’ve been using Hansoft. We use that with them on our side as well as JIRA. We use Slack as a communication tool and Skype for weekly conference calls. We also used code repositories. 

What did you most impressive about Cayugasoft Technologies?

It’s a general statement but it doesn’t apply to all external developers, but I think they just get the job done. They get it done fast. A lot of times with external developers, the quality that you get is directly related to the guidance that you give. If you just tell them to go and do something, they’ll do it quickly and it’ll work. It might not be exactly how your internal team has been doing things, so there could be conflicts as far as that goes in implementation differences. But the overwhelming positive quality is that, what seems like overnight, more stuff gets done than what is done internally in a week. It sometimes feels like that, but any upfront guidance that you provide would certainly help you as far as integrating with other people’s work. They just get the work done and it gets done fast, so that’s been big as far as revenue generation in our company.

Are there any areas Cayugasoft Technologies could improve?

I think it goes back to guidance. It’s hard to say what they could improve on it if you didn’t give them the initial directions. I don’t think there’s anything major that I can really think of.

Please describe your organization. What is your role and responsibilities?

I’m the founder, president, and COO of Ascendle. Ascendle is a contract software engineering firm specializing in mobile application development.

What was your goal for working with eGo Creative Media Solutions?

Our goal was to find the technical skill for our client projects. Our projects are typically mobile application projects using Xamarin, which is the Microsoft.NET technology that we use to build cross platform mobile apps. We wanted to keep costs down for our clients, so we wanted to find someone offshore while at the same time finding folks offshore that would be able to communicate with us well verbally. With eGo Creative Media Solutions, we had enough of a time zone overlap that it made it easy for us to collaborate and work together.

Please describe the scope of their work.

We started our partnerships with one project. It was to take an application that the client had built during four or five years and they wanted to rebuild it using Xamarin. They wanted it done as quickly as possible. So, we were able to take that five-year project and rebuild a version 1.0 and ship it in four and a half months. Since then, we have used eGo on other projects. I believe we have them on five projects at this point.

What was your process for selecting eGo Creative Media Solutions with which to work?

We were evaluating other companies as well as individual contractors to work with us. What swayed me to go with eGo was talking to the head of their company and getting a good feel for him personally. His outlook on business and how clients should be treated was very engaging. Also, through talking with some of the technical members of their team, I was confident in their development ability.

Can you give a sense of the size of the initiative in dollar terms or a personnel work-hour figure? When was the work completed?

The first project was about a four- or five-month project but, as mentioned, we’ve worked with eGo Creative Media Solutions on about four or five more projects. Our partnership is ongoing and falls between $50,000 to $200,000 total.

Is there anything unique or special about eGo Creative Media Solutions that really makes them stand out compared to other business partners?

I think the biggest things that we’ve seen are the attention to detail from the various eGo team members. They’re really on top of it. They’re highly skilled software engineers and quality assurance engineers. From an attitude perspective, they have a great attitude. There is a lot of pride in their work. They are very sharp people.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

I think the only thing is we hope they keep hiring more people so we can keep adding them to more of our projects.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a CEO of the consulting company in Tokyo, Japan. Our company worked on a mobile application development for consumer service here in Japan but eventually global service.

For what projects/services did your company hire EGO Creative Innovations, and what were your goals?

We wanted to develop a pilot model of the application as teaser for the investors to raise the foundation to start the actual development. The challenge for our team and EGO was that both teams were not familiar about developing such application system before. Also, not only the language barrier, but also we needed to learn some technical impressions of the features for the applications.

So we had discuss about the details numbers of times through video calls or emails to clarify the issues.

How did you select EGO Creative Innovations and what were the deciding factors?

We found EGO through a friend of mine, who works with them in Japan market before. The reference from the friend is one of the best ways and trust worth it based on my experience.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

As we started to build the application, EGO shared us the list of queries that require for developing the test model. We answered the queries and start to hold the video calls to discuss about what kind of application that we want. Gradually our team and EGO team to develop the basic form of the application. EGO team shared with us the numbers of applications images and we gave feedbacks after the review.

EGO team and our team basically went through these sessions for several months, then EGO team successfully finalized the pilot type as we requested.

How many resources from the EGO Creative Innovations team worked with you, and what were their positions?

A project manager worked on the project with us and another marketing manager helped sometimes to follow up if they would like to clarify the queries.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Our project is still test model and before showing off at the cloud funding system. On the other hand, our team is very satisfied with the test model that EGO team developed for us so far and we would like to brush it up with EGO team from now on.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We communicated through Emails and Zoom. Also EGO team provided us the application images in PDF files so we can easily make comments on it if need. Development phase took about three to four months. Meanwhile, we exchanged the numbers of communications through emails and zoom calls to follow up pending items for the test model.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Even we are not mature about the technical language of application development, EGO team developed the test model from the early stage of the development. Their knowledge and development skills were beyond our expectation level.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

In terms of sample pictures of products or shops that we set on the test model, perhaps EGO can add more variety of it so we can see how it looks different. At the same time, this is something our team can work on it with EGO team for the future project.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Founder & CEO of Small Wins LLC, which develops mobile applications to enhance the lives of new moms. The company is based in Chicago, Illinois and BAMBAMSleep! is our first app. I am the sole Founder so my role is quite diverse at this point. My focus so far is getting the idea off the ground, hiring, beta testing, customer success and marketing. As the company grow, my role will likely narrow in on hiring, customer success, marketing and fundraising.

For what projects/services did your company hire EGO Creative Innovations?

EGO Creative Innovations was selected after interviewing multiple creative development agencies in the US and abroad. Their team helped me bring the idea for BAMBAMsleep! from basic wireframes I had built in Sketch to reality. I worked with a project manager, UX/UI designer, developer, quality assurance and others. We had meetings twice a week to discuss every aspect of the project and Irina, our project manager did an excellent job at keeping everyone on the EGO side coordinated and within scope, timeline, and budget. The weekly meetings also helped hold myself accountable. Without all of these people, the project would not have come to life. Most importantly, the team was experienced enough to take my ideas and come back with thoughtful, well-research suggestions, which together made the product better than I had originally envisioned.

What were your goals for this project?

The goal was to build the iOS version of the MVP and to get it ready so it could be launched on the Apple Store.

How did you select this vendor?

I interviewed vendors based on recommendations from established mobile app developers. All the vendors I interviewed were very high quality. Ultimately, I decided on EGO because of the quality of their developers and team as well as their ability to create a high quality project with customized UI/UX design within my budget. It was important to me that the app was not "cookie cutter" design and they were able to make that happen. Furthermore, they were committed to meeting with me on a very frequent basis, so I felt that I was very involved in the outcome of the project.

Describe the project in detail.

I sent them the initial wireframes that I had built and the first couple of weeks were to discuss ideas, goals and logic. There were many logical issues that we had to sort out and they were very dilligent and patient in working through this. My meetings were twice a week and were always with both project manager and designer. The designer had flowcharts that I could see to review the logic and after a few weeks, she had designs of the main screens for me to review. Once approved, she quickly designed the rest of the screens and got my a clickable prototype that I could show to potential users and friends. After the approval of the prototype, the developer worked on it. Ultimately, the developer built 33 versions and during this process, there was a lot of back and forth with final details and changes.

What was the team composition?

Project manager, UX/UI designer, front-end/back-end developer, QA.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

At this point, we are beta testing the app and I am getting favourable feedback and no bugs yet! EGO helped me meet all the criteria to get the app approved by the Apple Store upon first try. They have also given good expertise and creative material to use in my separate marketing efforts.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The project manager assigned was great and kept the project moving , on time and within budget. She was a very effective communicator and got back to me on things super quickly. Despite being in different time zones, we were able to work together very effectively. I never once felt like I was out of the loop.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They coordinated, worked quickly, and included me on every step of the process. They definitely went the extra mile when it came to doing extra research and coming up with new ideas and suggestions for me. They took my vision and actively tried to make it better.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not really