Complete software lifecycle

Even if your project definition is as loose as "I have a problem that software can solve", we can help you turn it into a full-fledged, deployed product.

We work with clients to distill loosely-defined ideas into coherent plans that target the highest value features first. Our experience with lean software development helps us tune the amount of up-front planning. Overly detailed planning can waste time and money over-specifying features that never end up being useful, and too little planning can result in an un-focused product that requires excessive development efforts before it can yield any customer value. We've seen these problems before (and many others), and we can help you steer clear of these wastes.

We're not bound to a particular technology stack or type of development; we are adherents to "best tool for the job" and we'll work with you to carefully analyze your business requirements and pick the technologies that make the most sense for your project. Should your project be mobile-first or even mobile-only? Do you need native iOS or Android apps or is a cross-platform mobile-optimized webapp a better fit? Do workload or security requirements mean owning your own hardware is appropriate, or should you use a high-level PaaS offering like Heroku, or use more flexible lower-level services like EC2? We've used all of these approaches, and we can provide you with guidance to help you weigh the tradeoffs involved, maximize the return on your infrastructure spending, and minimize the risk of an expensive architecture change.

Regardless of which specific technologies are selected for a product, we can help turn product plans into a high-quality, complete software offering. We don't just deliver functioning code; we prefer to think of a finished project as one that has user activity analytics, performance and uptime monitoring for server-side components, thorough test coverage, and fully automated deployment.

iOS Native Applications

Over the past two years we’ve built and deployed multiple applications into the Apple App Store. Along the way we’ve built a sophisticated application toolkit that accelerates application development and ensures the end product will gracefully handle a complex variety of user environments (airplane mode, poor/no signal, etc). Additionally, we have experience with all aspects of building and deploying a native iOS application including:

• iOS development
• Automated and manual testing
• Closed beta deployment
• Navigating and ensuring compliance with Apple’s approval process
• Coordinated marketing release to the Apple App Store

Android Native Applications

Whether focusing on Android or preferring a dual native iOS/Android strategy, we can help. Android development has its own unique challenges (many different device resolutions, significant OS version diversity, etc.), but we've worked with these issues before, and we make the most of the rich Java and Android software ecosystem to quickly build high-quality Android apps.

Mobile Focused Web Applications

Native mobile applications are not always the best way to reach your customers. Common problems with native applications include:

• High barriers to initial use - finding and downloading from an App Store requires much more from users than typing in a URL.
• Slower releases - Releasing new versions requires app store approval, which can take days.
• No upgrade guarantee - Users must choose to download and install updates to your app.

If these difficulties are particularly problematic for your business case, building your mobile offering as a web-based application might be a better solution. We can help you evaluate these tradeoffs, and we have experience building and deploying web applications that mimic native applications in look and feel.

Mobile Compatible Web Applications

Not all situations call for a mobile strategy focused on smart phones. If tablets and desktop computers are the primary devices used to interact with your product, it may be preferable to focus application design and development on those devices. A well designed web site that renders well on smaller displays and uses technology supported on desktop browsers and mobile devices alike can often be as effective as a dedicated mobile application, at a much lower cost. If you don't have a markedly different mobile experience in mind, consider building one application that works across many different classes of devices.