Pieoneers

Mobile App & Web Development Company

4.9 6 Reviews
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At Pieoneers, we build mobile apps and web applications with our clients' strategic needs in our hearts. Our clients are companies, organizations, and ambitious startups that rely on high-performance web infrastructures and beautifully designed mobile apps for their success. With over 10 years in the business, Pieoneers has the digital prowess and the marketing chops to help you attract the right audience to your product. We offer product strategy, UX/UI design, web development, mobile app development in Android and iOS.

$100 - $149/hr
10 - 49
2009
Locations
Canada
950 – 777 Hornby Street, Vancouver, British Columbia V6Z 1S4
6047102407

Focus Areas

Service Focus

60%
30%
10%
  • Mobile App Development
  • Software Development
  • App Designing (UI/UX)

Client Focus

50%
50%
  • Medium Business
  • Small Business

Industry Focus

20%
20%
20%
20%
10%
10%
  • Business Services
  • Education
  • Healthcare & Medical

Pieoneers Executive Interview

Olena Tkhorovska
Olena Tkhorovska
CEO
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Please introduce your company and give a brief intro to your role?
Pieoneers builds mobile applications and web software for data-driven businesses and forward-thinking companies. Our clients range from innovative startups to multinational brands and top universities. We use a design-driven development process, focusing on the user and their experience. I am the CEO of Pieoneers. I've been running the company for ten years now and absolutely love my job. I love meeting with the customers, learn about their businesses, values, and aspirations to help them reach their goals. It's an enriching experience.
What was the idea behind starting your organization?
It's the desire to make great software. What's more, we desire to create better experiences for customers using data-driven software - across any platform, mobile or web, in-office, or in the field.
What is your company's business model?
Foremost, Pieoneers is a team of passionate individuals who love their work. Our core team consists of 15 people, and we enjoy working with 25 contractors on a per-project basis. As many forward-thinking software companies do, we've mastered a distributed work process. Our work process and toolset allow for efficient project management and communication across client projects and team geographies. Beyond our team, we've even helped clients like the University of British Columbia in Vancouver establish efficient distributed work processes with their team at the London School of Economics in the UK. We've worked on several projects where  97% of all communication is done in a distributed format combined with intermittent workshops and on-site design sprints.
How is your business model beneficial, from a value addition perspective to clients compared to other companies' models?
Our model is lean and efficient. We're able to cut out most of the overhead by focusing purely on delivering value through positive user experiences powered by production-grade software.
What industries do you generally cater to? Do you have any recurring customers?
Many of our customers are repeated or ongoing and work with us for 3 to 5 years or more. To most of our customers, Pieoneers is a design and technology partner. We work across industries focusing on projects where data has an immense significance to the business. Whether it's a Wikipedia-like platform for historical data with complex visualization tools, or an iPad app for sports leagues with an admin dashboard, analytics, and customized reports, Pieoneers creates software and user interfaces that make the work process enjoyable and stress-free.
Mention the objectives or parameters critical in determining the timeframe for developing a mobile app.
At Pieoneers, we take timelines seriously. Accurate estimates and predictable roadmaps are possible thanks to our planning process. Proactive planning tools such as UX Maps,  and Interactive Prototypes, along with a few other tools like Job Stories, provide our clients with detailed project monitoring and enable them to set priorities. This lets the whole team know which feature set needs to be designed and delivered as part of the current release timeframe and which for future release. Another proactive strategy we use is maintaining daily communications and having weekly status reviews - it's essential to stay in touch.
How much effort in terms of time goes into developing the front-end and back-end of a mobile app?
That's an excellent question, and there is no general answer as every project is unique. We've worked on projects ranging from 1,000 to 20,000 hours. In this case, by hours, we're referring only to productive hours in a day.
What are the key parameters to be considered before selecting the right platform for a mobile app?
One of the first parameters to consider is the target audience. We carefully discuss and research the end-users with a series of questions. For example:
1) How are the end-users going to be able to find the app? Through the App Store? Google Play?  Partner websites? Paid ads? 
2) The overall technology strategy is also essential. Are there any technological restrictions or advantages that a particular platform offers? For many startups, cost and time to market are critical factors, thus choosing a platform that allows cost and time savings is quite crucial even if some technological luxuries have to wait till more funding is available.
Android or iOS, Native or Hybrid — which platform is best to use to build your app? What are your recommendations?
Each business is unique and is at a certain phase of development. At Pieoneers, we help our customers make educated decisions as to the benefits of each platform for their short-term and long-term goals. For a prototype or a relatively simple app, it may make sense to choose React Native to be able to cater to both iOS and Android users by having one codebase. However, if you anticipate faster growth or a need to increase the complexity, or provide a broader range of features, a native platform iOS (Swift), Android (Kotlin) may give you more advantages when entering the growth stage. The nature of an app also often dictates which direction it's best to look into. Nothing can beat the smooth UI interactions and animations at 60 fps vs. 25 fps with hybrid solutions. Any hybrid platforms always have tonnes of catching up to do and be react to updates and changes released on the native platforms. Nevertheless, the faster time-to-market advantage that both React and Flutter can offer can be the deciding factor for many companies.
What are the key factors that you consider before deciding the cost of a mobile application?
We take budgets and timelines seriously at Pieoneers. We have a meticulous planning process that puts the user and the company goals at the center. By conducting collaborative workshops with our clients and producing UX Maps, we define the priorities and help our clients understand and plan their software releases with precise cost estimates and timelines. We provide flowcharts, user stories/job stories, and supporting documents to make sure our design and development process is as efficient as possible.
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.)
Pieoneers offers a unique work model to our customers. We can work as your technology partner and become a part of your in-house team. The payment structures vary from monthly budgets to milestone-based payments.
Do you take in projects which meet your essential budget requirement? If yes, what is the minimum requirement? If no, on what minimum budget you have worked for?
During the active development process, we've worked on projects requiring anywhere from 100 to 1,000 hours per month, from 6 months to 3 years and more. Maintenance phases can vary and require less time; we are usually able to advise on the minimum requirements for each project's unique needs.
What is the price range (min and max) of the projects that you catered to in 2018?
From $100,000 to $2.5M.
Which business model do you suggest to your clients, enabling them to generate revenue from mobile applications? Why?
This is an excellent and in-depth question that requires understanding the business model. I would like to invite anyone interested to get in touch with me and have a conversation.

Pieoneers Reviews

4.9 6 Reviews
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  • App Designing (UI/UX)
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Sally Crane

Strategic Web Application Revamp

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Project Detail

$200000+
Education

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Review Summary

As the team behind the Embedding Project, we required a long-term tech partner who could guide us in prioritizing features and choosing the best tech stack for our needs. Pieoneers fit the bill with their understanding of both tech and sustainability. They mapped out our legacy application, redesigned the architecture to improve scalability and performance, and implemented a goals database that integrated seamlessly with Tableau. Our collaboration involved multiple technologies, including React, Node.js, Python, and more, to ensure a fully functional mobile and web application.

What service was provided as part of the project?

Software Development, App Designing (UI/UX)

Describe your project in brief

Working with Pieoneers has been a game-changer for the Embedding Project. They revamped our website for improved user experience, implemented a complex goals database integrated with Tableau, and delivered it all with a high degree of technical excellence using a range of technologies like React, Node.js, Contentful, and Python. With tools like Google Meet and Basecamp for updates and an initial on-site workshop for a deep dive into project details, Pieoneers has proven to be more than just a service provider—they've been a strategic ally. As a result, our website's loading times have been reduced by 50-90%, and the new architecture accommodates a 10X growth in resources.

What is it about the company that you appreciate the most?

What stands out with Pieoneers is their initiative to go beyond mere development. Their strategic insights into how we can better prioritize features and foresee potential challenges have been invaluable. Their agile methodology and efficient communication made the entire process smooth, making them a true extension of our team.

What was it about the company that you didn't like which they should do better?

Our experience has been overwhelmingly positive. If there's one area where there's room for improvement, it would be the initial onboarding phase. While it was mostly well-executed, there were minor areas that could be fine-tuned. However, this is a small concern in an otherwise highly effective partnership.

Tim Wallace

A seamless expert led collaboration

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Project Detail

$200000+
Completed
Healthcare & Medical

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Review Summary

Our experience with Pieoneers has been great. They developed our Jevitty App for native mobile platforms using Swift and Kotlin. They helped us to integrate it with our medical imaging backend via a robust API. This effort streamlined the patient experience, established initial data collection of the medical report generation.

We used tools like Google Meet and Jira for regular updates. We also regularly met in-person for our work sessions. The work sessions proved to be especially productive, offering us a deep dive into the project's details. As the outcome, we saw an increase in user engagement rates and a significant influx of new users—both key indicators of the project’s success.

In summary, Pieoneers have been an invaluable partner. Their technical expertise helped us achieve our mission and objectives. The native mobile apps and backend integration they delivered were transformative for our business, taking both our brand and customer experience to an entirely new level.

What was the project name that you have worked with Pieoneers?

Innovative Health Platform

What service was provided as part of the project?

Mobile App Development, Software Development, App Designing (UI/UX)

Describe your project in brief

As Jevitty's Advisor of Markets and Investors, I aimed to guide the business toward quick expansion and market penetration. To develop and grow our ground-breaking health app, which will transform how people interact with their well-being, we partnered with Pieoneers. Pieoneers used a combination of Swift, Kotlin, Python, Django, and Google Cloud to build an app that not only offers an exceptional user experience but also adheres to high-security requirements. To test the market, we first created a React Native pilot. Pieoneers significantly improved the user experience by switching from a React Native pilot to native mobile apps. It was a great strategic decision for our long-term development. They created a reliable API that guided the patient from the time of initial data collection through the distribution of results. They were not simply involved in the technical aspects; they also played a crucial role in creating a brand that strongly reflects our aim of promoting wellness and

What is it about the company that you appreciate the most?

What I appreciated most about working with Pieoneers was the tangible impact of their work on our business objectives. The measurable outcomes, from increased user engagement rates to a significant influx of new users, validated their expertise and confirmed that we had chosen the right partner for our project.

What was it about the company that you didn't like which they should do better?

Honestly, it's difficult to pinpoint what I liked least as our overall experience was overwhelmingly positive. If I had to pick something, it would be that we occasionally had to adjust our timelines. However, this is part and parcel of any complex project, and Pieoneers always communicated clearly and made sure to make up for any delay

Bill Gordon

Good experience in cleaning up Django app

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Review Summary

We had a problematic/under maintained Django application that needed some care. We didn't have the in-house skills or capacity to do the work. Some web searching led us to Pieoneers. Why did we go with Pieoneers? They were easy to engage with, had the right skills, offered a good price, and had a local presence. The project went more or less to plan... The good: it got done reasonably to budget and schedule expectations - the assigned developer was quite good. The bad: We were surprised to send payments to Olena's house. But, it was in the middle of the pandemic! The unexpected: The developer was in Ukraine. We thought we were engaging a local resource. For sure we would have been hesitant to got straight to Ukraine ourselves. All in all a good experience! Bill Gordon, Bright Health

What service was provided as part of the project?

Mobile App Development, Web Development

Company Response
Pieoneers
Pieoneers

Thank you for a good and candid review, Bill! Working through the pandemic taught us a few things, so we will be making improvements. Pieoneers evolved to utilize the distributed work model and takes pride in working with the top professionals that have been the heart and soul of our team for many years. We are grateful for the opportunity to work with you and the Bright Health team.

Posted on Jun 17, 2021
Gene Haba Jr

Marketplace Development

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Project Detail

$50001 to $200000

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Review Summary

We worked with Pieoneers on the planning and development of Pledge Circle, our new digital marketplace for the K-12 segment. After four months of collaboration, we truly have complete confidence in Pieoneers and can highly recommend them. 

Having Pieoneers on board is especially valuable to us, as we do not have any technical founders on our team. For us, Pieoneers has been a trusted partner, acting as our CTO and engineering department.

Initially, we selected Pieoneers because of their focus on web, mobile web, and mobile app development. In the new digital age, as an innovative enterprise, we preferred to focus on mobile first strategy.

Working with our US team, Pieoneers has now built us an extensive Game Plan, based on discovery meetings and Google Ventures’ Sprint process. During this phase, Pieoneers created a prototype of our platform, a strategic system architecture, and a technology strategy. 

Throughout the whole process, working with Pieoneers has been fantastic. We loved the Sprint process, particularly the critical drilling down into user stories during prototyping, and the testing stage to validate the concept—before investing time and money in full development.

Needless to say, the scope of this project was substantial. Together, we tackled everything from confirming initial computer logic, architecture, and diagrams for a new graphical user interface (GUI) patent, to carrying out all phases of development planning up to funding and execution. 

Pieoneers rose to the challenge, helping us with integration and back-end planning, mobile UI/UX, web UI/UX prototypes, AWS cloud architecture, visual interface, logo, and brand design, product strategy planning, payment systems, and software as a service (SaaS) tools. 

The global team at Pieoneers can ramp up development talent as needed to execute project goals, with worldwide resources at their fingertips. They have a deep understanding of digital marketplace development, for all devices and operating systems, including iOS and Android.

Ultimately, Pieoneers are fully equipped to lead the development of a scalable startup vision like ours and were key in developing our tech stack, key frameworks, and our total architecture plan. They provided immense support and advice throughout, aiding our own internal development.

In terms of results, our work with Pieoneers has helped us develop our product strategy, build better pitch decks, apply for patents, and successfully seek investment and strategic partnerships. I cannot recommend Pieoneers highly enough for your web and mobile development needs.

What service was provided as part of the project?

Mobile App Development, App Designing (UI/UX)

What is it about the company that you appreciate the most?

My confident start-up engineering department.

Rich Berman

Gamesheet Version 3 rebuild

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Pieoneers developed a detailed plan to rebuild our system, expanding its capabilities and including all the upgrades and improvements from the current system. There were detailed in all of their work, making sure to not miss features etc of the current system.

What service was provided as part of the project?

Software Development, App Designing (UI/UX), Web Designing (UI/UX)

Jon Thorpe

Pieoneers - a great development partner.

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I have used Pieoneers for two major projects over the years, the first being a native iPad / iOS application (social) and the second being a SaaS platform (flowmail.com). With both projects, they were professional, prompt and worked as part of the team to solve problems, provide suggestions and develop a top notch user experience.

What service was provided as part of the project?

Web Development, App Designing (UI/UX)