Please introduce your company and give a brief about your role within the company?
Axisbits is a Ukrainian-based software development company with specialization in web applications and web design. Our company works with startups as well as large and established businesses from the Inc. 5000 list. We are a full-cycle company, providing all services from business analysis of the idea, to deploying the project and maintenance.
What was the idea behind starting this organization?
The demand for web development continually grows, and many western clients seek development teams all around the world. Back in 2013, when we decided to start our own service company, we knew that the main concern about outsourcing is communication. So, we tried to build our cooperation with clients based on transparency. We did not want to be just an outsourcing company; we aimed to be partners for our clients, providing not only development but resolving their problems.
What is your company’s business model–in house team or third party vendors/ outsourcing?
We tried both models, but at the moment, outsourcing is more appealing to us than outstaffing. We like to get complete projects, from start to release, covering all the stages - design, development, quality assurance, etc.
How is your business model beneficial from a value addition perspective to the clients compared to other companies' models?
Clients do not have to search for several providers for different services. Our team handle the project from scratch and maintain it after the release. We set up servers, help to buy hosting or other needed services. We guide a client during the process of development, helping to resolve any issues.
What industries do you generally cater to? Are your customers repetitive?
We work with clients from various industries. We build custom CRM and ERP systems for established businesses - this software is needed for companies of any kind. Also, we work with startups on various Software-as-a-Service projects, that can also be in any industry.
Our team has many repetitive clients, and currently, they are our primary source of sales. We work with businesses for years, because a successful business has a lot of potentials to improve its processes with the help of IT.
Mention the objectives or the parameters critical in determining the time frame of developing software.
The most critical parameter for good estimating is a clear and complete specification, but in most cases, clients do not have it, and it's ok. We have Business Analytics which help clients to transform the idea into specification or wireframes. When we have it, we can make a time and cost estimate.
How much effort in terms of time goes into developing the front end and back end of software?
These days the front-end becomes more and more sophisticated. Several years ago, we had a lot of back-end developers and only a few front-end. Today it is vice versa. We build modern and high-quality applications so we must pay attention to their look and feel for end users. That's why we are constantly expanding our front-end team and researching modern front-end technologies.
What are the key parameters to be considered before selecting the right framework for developing software?
The most important parameter is a list of tasks that a future project should resolve. Most features of the modern web applications we can develop with almost any framework, so in this case, we select the safest, fastest, and popular one. For some specific tasks, however, we have to consider other technologies, that we combine with the main framework.
These days developers and clients often choose frameworks based mostly on their popularity. But we try to select technologies that were tested by the community, have excellent support, stable, secure, and fast.
Which languages & frameworks do you prefer to use in development of software?
We use two of the most popular technologies on the Web - PHP and Javascript. For the back-end, we use PHP7 with a modern Laravel or Symfony framework. On the front-end, we use React or Vue.js, which are great frameworks for JavaScript.
PHP is used on 90% of websites across the web, and it's latest major version - 7th - is great. It's twice faster than the previous version, well-tested, secure and in general, suits almost all web applications.
JavaScript with frameworks like React or Vue.js is a great (and, well, the only) choice for modern front-end programming.
What are the key factors that you consider before deciding the cost of software?
The scope of the project is a crucial factor. The more features are needed for the release - the more resources should be spent on it. Of course, features have different complexity, so we estimate every task separately.
Our team always works closely with the client on determining the budget for the project. If we cannot include all the features into the given budget, we propose a shortlist for the MVP version.
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.)
The most popular model is Pay per Milestone. We divide the project into parts, usually two weeks each, create a development plan with a list of tasks for each milestone. At the end of every milestone, we do a presentation of our work to a client, get feedback, work on it, and then request payment. This way, we provide transparency and minimize risks.
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?
We work on custom applications, so the budget usually starts at $2-3k. For repetitive clients, we do smaller tasks or maintain past projects.
What is the price range (min and max) of the projects that you catered to in 2018?
The price range is from $2k to $50k.
Kindly share your feedback on how Goodfirms has been doing so far in increasing your visibility among potential clients.
Goodfirms does a great job providing information about us and our services to potential clients. We get requests for projects from people who found us on Goodfirms' website, and we are happy to be in Goodfirms' rating.
