Please introduce your company and give a brief about your role within the company?
Jetruby Agency is a software development outsourcing company started in 2010 a YC Startup which specializes in web and mobile apps development. Nowadays we are very proficient in various business domains including real estate apps development, e-commerce, social apps, entertainment, CRM, ERP, SaaS and many many others. JetRuby Agency provides full-cycle software development and is focused on a single technology stack, not on providing tons of programming languages, every single specialist is available in-house. We are a team of almost one hundred and growing rapidly. I am in the chair of CEO and at the same time owner and founder.
What was the idea behind starting this organization?
Well, initially we were ambitious to start development of awesome and user-friendly apps that might be used in a variety of gadgets in every house globally. And we’ve come closer to this goal nowadays. Today a variety of startups have chosen JetRuby Agency to start their digital future!
What is your company’s business model–in house team or third party vendors/ outsourcing?
Our business reputation is worth a lot. We do not outsource and work with freelancers under any circumstances as we are fully responsible for the high quality of our deliverables. All our software engineers are available in-house in our RnD offices, fully manageable by our PMO and Team Leads. Every client may easily knock on our door, visit our offices and meet developers assigned to the project personally.
How is your business model beneficial from a value addition perspective to the clients compared to other companies' models?
First of all, we provide our clients with a thorough business analysis phase in order to make a future app even more viable. Deep technical dive gives us a chance to grasp inner sense of the product and understand the clients’ vision, whether it is a startup or well-established business. Later on, our variety of business models provides sustainable flexibility to choose the most applicable for the sake of saving funds or shortening a timeline, where possible, within the project development. We try hard to meet the most extreme demands of our clients as we tend to feel their pain as our own. Their project is our product. Being a YC Startup, we know how to grow fast from the beginning.
What industries do you generally cater to? Are your customers repetitive? If yes, what ratio of clients has been repetitive to you?
Indeed, they are. It is very much more efficient to scale up the apps you develop or services you have received from your original developers. Whenever our tech team develops something similar to the previous project, developers always become more and more experienced. This gives additional value to all next-in-the-row clients because we are perfectly familiar with all possible bottlenecks happened within previous development. Right at the moment we are well-qualified in development of real estate apps, social apps, infrastructure, online shopping, entertainment, booking, education, geo-location, music industry, Internet advertising etc. Furthermore, focused on healthcare and finance sectors of economics. We have found that around 70% of our clients return.
Mention the objectives or the parameters critical in determining the time frame of developing a mobile app.
Obviously these parameters are complexity of the interface and functional end itself, number of supported platforms and devices etc. Also a question of great importance is the quantity of developers in the team and their level of expertise, highly professional interaction between other teams within the project (UI/UX design, back-end etc.) One should also take into account whether the app is going to be tested for quality issues and bugs.
How much effort in terms of time goes into developing the front-end and back-end of a mobile app?
Typically the proportions of development hours greatly depend on the business logic of future application but normally it takes about 60% of front-end time and 40% of back-end.
What are the key parameters to be considered before selecting the right platform for a mobile application?
Every mobile application should have its own focus audience, target market, segment etc. Before choosing the right platform, a product owner should perform sustainable market research to find out the devices prevailing in the area or group. The best choice is to have both at the end of the day, iOS and Android. But it should be a smart guess when one choose a single platform to go with. Another crucial thing is, when the functionality of the app is considered, one should bear in mind certain technical restrictions or limitations the platform might have.
Which platform do you suggest your clients to begin with when they approach you with an idea (Android or iOS) and why?
Again, it depends on lots of above mentioned factors. Together with our client we discuss all possible issues and ideas of the future app first. Later we come out with our best solution. We always care that client’s funds should not be wasted and our choice should be really reasonable. Say, in case we develop an MVP or POC, we may suggest a hybrid technology for mobile development. When full-scale development is in place, our choice of native mobile stack is based on functionality of the app, target audience etc.
Android or iOS, Native or Hybrid — which platform is best to use to build your app? What are your recommendations?
We are big fans of native development, though hybrid technologies are also something we like. This choice greatly depends on functionality of the app and approach towards the development. In an ideal situation we would definitely recommend to go with iOS or Android Native. That is for sure.
What are the key factors that you consider before deciding the cost of a mobile application?
The price tag for the development of any mobile app is influenced by complexity of the functional end, design, number of supported devices and a variety of platforms, responsiveness, availability of fully detailed technical specification for the app, team composition, services provided along with the development itself. Mentioned are the key factors. Also it obviously depends on a model of co-operation a client may choose, either it is Fixed Cost, Fixed Budget or Time & Material. The more detailed the specification is, the far more accurate our estimation will be.
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.)
We have two available payment models. Either by milestone or by two-week iteration. It generally works in the following way. After iteration or milestone is over, we collect time report and send it to our client for approval. After the time report is approved, we send the invoice to the client. To be fair, we provide a certain flexibility to the clients who are loyal to us and have been cooperating with the JetRuby Agency for a long time.
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?
Well, it depends on the situation and strategic synergy with a potential client, strategy of co-operation etc. But, we may effectively take up the projects with a minimum budget starting from around 10,000 USD.
What is the price range (min and max) of the projects that you catered to in 2016?
Minimum was 14,352 USD and maximum was 2,71,199 USD.
Which business model do you suggest to your clients enabling them to generate revenue from mobile applications? Why?
We always offer the best business model based on our expertise, market research, functionality and idea of the app.
