Goodfirms Interview With CEO At Idealogic

When deciding upon the development partner, it is important to understand the company’s vision and expertise as well as check out references to be sure that the working process will be pleasant for both parties. Recently, Goodfirms, a full-fledged B2B research platform published an interview with Oleksandr Saiko, CEO at Idealogic. We decided to publish its full version on our website so that our current and potential clients may discover our vision, approach to customers, and some technical details of our work. Enjoy reading!

Please introduce your company and give a brief about your role within the company?

Idealogic is a technology partner for startups and serial entrepreneurs who want to bring new ideas into life. Our team helps them by providing a full specter of services from creating comprehensive visual prototypes to developing the code itself and supporting applications after release.

I am lucky enough to have a team of professionals who are passionate about their work, so as a CEO, I can focus on company development and scaling of our services. My priority is setting new goals and defining a strategy to achieve them, which I see as a key to constant development and growth.

What was the idea behind starting this organization?

I have been working in IT positions in different areas for about 15 years, and I constantly noticed the lack of reliable and stable software development partners that can take care of a project properly and responsibly. This is how I purified the idea and strategy for Idealogic. We need to be able to help our clients in every single stage of the development and delivery process.

What are your company’s business model–in house team or third party vendors/ outsourcing?

We keep everything in-house by hiring highly skilled and motivated professionals. It is not easy at all, but it allows us to keep the quality on the same level despite we cannot afford to grow as fast as some competitors.

How is your business model beneficial from a value addition perspective to the clients compared to other companies’ models?

We provide our clients with a clear and transparent flow that gives them the opportunity to track all the possible expenses in addition to the permanent client’s engagement that is supported by the Scrum methodology.

What industries do you generally cater to? Are your customers repetitive? If yes, what ratio of clients has been repetitive to you?

Our company is focused on the development of decentralized Blockchain, Fintech, and Business Intelligence web and mobile applications. But we don’t hesitate to work with projects in Healthcare, Logistics, and Retail areas. The satisfaction of our clients helps us to get new projects from them and continue the development of existing ones. The ratio is about 60-70%.

Mention the objectives or the parameters critical in determining the time frame of developing a mobile app. Mention the objectives or the parameters critical in determining the time frame of developing a mobile app.

The development time depends on several factors:

• Scope and complexity of the app. The more complex the app is, the more time is needed to prepare the UI/UX design, requirements specifications, and to develop the app itself. All these details are revealed in the estimates that we provide to our clients on each stage.
• Technology stack. If a client has specific requirements for some technologies (native or cross-platform mobile development or very rare backend technology), it may extend the development period. 
• Responsiveness of the client. It is important to get feedback from the client as soon as possible to make sure we are on the right track. Also, if there is any assistance that must be provided from the client-side, for example, some data for the import, it should be shared with the development team in advance.
• Sticking to the initial plan. It is not a rare situation when a client wants to add some features in the middle of the development. It is important to understand that even small changes down the road can affect timelines.

How much effort in terms of time goes into developing the front end and back end of a mobile app?

It depends on the app complexity and scope of work. We provide an estimation for every project to define what and when should be done. It is important both for the client to understand the time frames of the development, and for us to build a plan of work. Our business analysts cooperate with engineers to offer the client the most time and cost-effective solution.

We recommend clients to start with the Product Design stage during which we define product requirements, write a technical specification, and build design wireframes. So basically, we see how the product will look like, what functions it will perform, and how much effort in terms of time and resources are needed for the development. That allows us to provide a more accurate estimation and build a clear roadmap of the development.

What are the key parameters to be considered before selecting the right platform for a mobile application?

I would say that project scale, target audience, and functionality are the top three important parameters when deciding the platform to choose. These factors are interconnected, so it is crucial to take into account all of them at the stage of building app architecture.

Which platform do you suggest your clients to begin with when they approach you with an idea (Android or iOS) and why?

There is no one-size-fits-all solution, so it depends on the client’s vision of the product. There are a lot of factors that influence the choice of a mobile platform. These include preferences of potential users, level of flexibility needed in the app, and desired functionality.

Android or iOS, Native or Hybrid — which platform is best to use to build your app? What are your recommendations?

It is difficult to recommend as it depends on the app features and resources that can be allocated to the development. Developing an app for two separate platforms will take more time as each platform will have its own update and release cycle, which also contributes to the development time and cost. Hybrid app, on the other hand, allows building a single code base for all platforms, which makes app launch and further updates easier and faster. There are cases when an app must be developed specifically for one or another platform. But overall hybrid apps allow us to have the same consistent and high-quality experience on all platforms and devices. Therefore, we insist that every case should be discussed and analyzed separately to offer the best solution.

What are the key factors that you consider before deciding the cost of a mobile application?

There are a lot of factors affecting the cost of a mobile application. These include the architecture of the future application, the business functionality of a system, and UI/UX. Therefore, while onboarding a new partner, we constantly insist on starting with Product Design, which helps to understand the cost of a future product.

What kind of payment structure do you follow to bill your clients? Is it Pay per Feature, Fixed Cost, Pay per Milestone (could be in phases, months, versions, etc.)

In order to be on track and show our responsibility, we provide our clients with the Fixed Cost model for each specific stage (Product Design or Development). When we start to work on a project, our project managers divide the whole scope of work into milestones that should be paid only when a particular milestone is finished and shown to a client.

Do you take in projects which meet your basic budget requirement? If yes, what is the minimum requirement? If no, on what minimum budget you have worked for?

Since we pursue the best candidates for each project we work on, we cannot work with very small projects because those are not interesting for skilled software developers. The minimum budget that meets our expectations is $10,000 that covers the development of a stable and comprehensive Proof-of-Concept.

What is the price range (min and max) of the projects that you catered to in 2018?

From $6,000 to $150,000.

Which business model do you suggest to your clients enabling them to generate revenue from mobile applications? Why?

Each project is unique, so there is no one-size-fits-all model of monetization. At first, we conduct research and analysis, and only then can we make conclusions on the financial model of a product. And don’t forget about the universal formula “income = revenue – expenses.”

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