Creating a Great Company Culture

Building an app presents incredible opportunities, and that’s not just for tech disruptors. You can sell your product, grow your business, delight and engage customers, and even transform your customers’ experience. It's all possible with the right app development partner. But finding that partner means asking the right questions at the forefront—questions like the following.   Questions on Developer Capabilities Before diving into the specifics of your project, it’s crucial to understand the overall capabilities and expertise of your potential app development partner. The following questions will help you gauge these critical aspects. What technologies do you use and why? This question helps you understand how the development company thinks. Worry less about the specific technology they use and more about whether the development company can clearly articulate their reason for using it and the benefits to you and your product. Unless you are already a technology pro, choose a partner based on their expertise. Let them use tools they know to get great results. Have you done anything similar to what I’m asking you to do? You don’t need an exact match or even a company that has developed a similar app. Still, your potential development partner should be able to draw parallels to their relevant work. Shared connection points, whether on the industry, product, or technical level, will increase the likelihood of your project’s success. What are the riskiest parts of my project? Asking your app development partner this question will give you insight into your project and its areas of expertise. To know whether it’s worth continuing down the development path, consider risks early on to develop a plan. The riskiest parts are those that will likely make or break the product. How do you approach integrating AI and other emerging technologies into app development? This question helps you understand the development company’s experience with AI and other emerging technologies and their commitment to staying current in these rapidly evolving fields. A competent partner should be able to explain their approach to integrating new technologies. Look for a partner who can articulate the potential benefits and challenges of implementing AI and other new technologies in your project. They should demonstrate a balanced approach that leverages innovation while ensuring practical, user-focused solutions.   Questions on Digital Product Strategy & Design A great app is more than just code—it’s a solution to a problem or a means to achieve a business goal. These questions will help you understand how your potential partner approaches the strategic aspects of app development. How do you approach digital product strategy and planning? A strong app development partner should have a clear process for supporting digital product strategy. This process might include market research, user persona development, and competitive analysis. Understanding their approach will help you gauge how thoroughly they consider your app’s broader context. What is your UI/UX design strategy? Look for a development partner who integrates UI/UX design throughout the entire app development process, not just as an afterthought. A competent partner will explain how their UI/UX process helps transform your ideas into user experiences that are both functional and visually appealing. How do you ensure that the app’s design aligns with user needs and business goals? An effective app development partner should systematically align design with user needs and business goals. They should conduct in-depth discussions to understand your product vision and objectives. Ask about their methods for gathering user insights, such as interviews, surveys, or usability testing. A strong partner will incorporate user feedback throughout the development process. How do you handle post-launch strategy and ongoing improvements? App development doesn’t end at launch. Ask about their approach to gathering user feedback, analyzing app performance, and planning for future updates and feature additions. A good partner will have a clear strategy for maintaining and evolving the app over time. How do you ensure long-term relevance and competitiveness? With technology evolving rapidly, it’s important to understand how a potential partner stays current and evaluates new technologies for inclusion in their digital product strategies. Look for a partner who demonstrates a thoughtful, strategic approach to technology adoption, rather than simply chasing the latest trends. They should be able to provide examples of how they’ve successfully incorporated new technologies into past projects to drive long-term value and competitiveness.   Questions on Process & Communication The success of your project often hinges on smooth collaboration and clear communication. These questions will help you understand how the development team operates and how they’ll keep you informed and involved throughout the process. Do you outsource or offshore any part of your development process? Most app development projects loosely break into several stages: discovery, design, development and testing, and deployment. Some companies choose to outsource one or more parts of this process. Seek to understand how the company will work with outside contractors, if at all. Offshoring may offer reduced hourly rates, but consider other factors. Offshoring typically requires extra project management effort. Cultural differences can introduce risk to the project. Less cohesion and familiarity among team members can increase the total time required. Do these trade-offs decrease the price? Who will be my main point of contact once the project kicks off? Multiple people will probably be involved in building your app, but you don’t want to have to navigate who the right contact is for what. There are also times when it’s more efficient to go right to the source when discussing technical or design challenges. Make sure you can talk with developers and designers as needed, but that there is a project manager keeping tabs on your project—and who is your first point of contact for any needs. How will we communicate during the app development process? Numerous ways to interact remotely include phone calls, video conferences, screen sharing, and collaborative online workspaces. The best app development partners take advantage of all these options, creating a virtual environment that’s as interactive and productive as in-person collaboration. Ideally, your app development partner provides seamless interaction, whether you are working through complex issues or getting answers to quick questions. Electronic communication is equally essential for project management and knowledge capture. Many developers use tools such as GitHub, ZenHub, Asana, Slack, Microsoft Teams, or others to track project progress and facilitate team communication. These tools help ensure the project stays on track and team members remain aligned, regardless of their physical location. You might already have such a tool in place, and your potential app development partner should be on board with using it or integrating it with their existing systems to streamline project management and communication. Look for a partner with a proven track record of successful collaboration who can clearly articulate their approach to maintaining strong communication in a distributed work environment. How will I receive status updates, and how often? The answer to this question should consider your personal preference. You want to ensure the frequency of status updates is compatible with your desire to receive them. As noted above, there are numerous ways for you to stay connected, and your chosen app development partner should be willing to adapt to your needs. How involved will I be in the project? When do I get to provide input? Big reveals make for good television on home renovation shows, but it’s not how you want to receive your product. It’s best to monitor your software throughout the project’s life, so you can make course corrections as needed. The best app development shops work with agile methodologies, simultaneously building and testing small code sections. Expect to interact with the app early in the process and as your developer adds each piece of functionality. Furthermore, you are likely the subject matter expert for your product, and your partner ought to rely on you for knowledge of your industry and customer. Your feedback, including help with testing the app during development, ensures that the best product is delivered. What if my priorities or scope change during the project? Successful software projects are rarely defined completely and then built to that definition. You want a software development partner who can adapt to your needs. Ideally, your developer will provide you with a central point of contact throughout the project and expect things to shift while allowing flexibility to meet your changing priorities and timelines.   Questions on Financials & Legalities Understanding your project’s financial and legal aspects is crucial for avoiding surprises and ensuring a smooth development process. These questions will help clarify your app’s cost structure and ownership details of your digital product. How much will my project cost? You want to be able to plan your time and budget for the length of the project. Ensure your development partner provides a written estimate so you can expressly agree on the expectations. Beyond the total cost, it’s essential to understand the pricing structure. The most common options are an hourly rate or a fixed cost, plus maintenance and support. Hourly Rates: With hourly pricing, the developer charges a rate for each hour worked and tracks the amount of time spent on your project. In the proposal, the development company estimates how many hours they believe the project will take but will charge you for every hour worked, whether that total time is below or above the approximation. Fixed Cost: In a fixed-price project, the developer will provide you with the project’s total cost and (hopefully) stick with that number. When work above and beyond the original scope is necessary, the developer should tell you how much extra work will cost before moving ahead. Maintenance & Support: Ongoing work after the app launches is almost always required to acquire new users and keep current users engaged. This type of work ranges from bug fixes (there will always be bugs!) to testing updated operating system releases and adding new functionality to the app. It’s worth understanding upfront how your partner would recommend structuring a maintenance and support program and the associated fee structure. Who will own the app? As the customer, you should own the finished product. Find the Right App Developer for Your Project For the success of your project, take the time to find the right developer—one who: Has the expertise and strategic insights to help you deliver the app you want to build. Focuses on real user needs, tangible results, and effective communication. Has the proper cost structure for you. Use these questions and considerations to help you learn more about potential app development partners before you choose.  For more resources, consider reading our free book, InspiringApps: A Business Perspective on Building Mobile Apps, to gain a foundational understanding of the business and technical considerations involved in building an app. And, if you’re curious about how InspiringApps would respond to questions like the ones we’ve just shared, find our answers in Your Journey With InspiringApps.

Technology is changing at such a rapid pace that we have seen many tech disruptions in a relatively short time.  A “disruptive technology” displaces an established technology, thereby shaking up an industry and reshaping its future trajectory. A tech disruptor could also be a ground-breaking product that creates an entirely new industry.  Join our drive down the technology superhighway as we rediscover the top tech disruptions over the past 10 years and dive into what’s next. 2014: Amazon Echo Brings the IoT Home Amazon Echo barreled into our lives this year, causing us to rethink how we might use technology in our homes. Powered by Amazon’s voice control system, Alexa, the Echo started with just a few intelligent voice commands. Alexa now boasts thousands of “skills” and has become the central hub in so-called smart homes, making the Internet of Things (IoT) accessible to a much wider audience. Followed quickly by Google Home and, more recently, by Apple HomePod, this technology is sure to continue to grow. 2015: Autonomous Vehicles Inspire Change The autonomous car, aka the self-driving car, is envisioned as one capable of sensing its environment and navigating without human input. The quest to develop technologies that could enable such a feat began to rise in 2015. Consumers have benefitted from numerous changes in car technology (think adaptive speed tech, proximity sensors, guidance systems, etc.) as manufacturers began pursuing this vision. This dramatic reshaping of the automotive industry certainly deserves a call-out. 2016: Oculus Rift Opens Up Virtual Reality Virtual reality has been a concept for decades, providing increasing value in various fields such as military training, surgery simulation, and product development and testing. Although Google had been selling Google Glass prototypes since 2013, VR’s availability to consumers was limited until the introduction of Oculus Rift in 2016. With its launch, VR exploded into many homes. The system was a hot gift and introduced the concept of VR to a broader audience—it’s hard not to enjoy (or laugh with?) someone experiencing VR for the first time! 2017: AI Takes the Stage Artificial intelligence (AI) is a science-fiction trope brought to life. With numerous large companies investing billions of dollars on research in this field, it’s poised to influence how we live and work in the coming years. Applications include everything from automating tasks using bots to enabling computers to answer complex, multi-tiered questions by “learning” from previous queries. 2018: 5G Begins Its Rollout As connectivity became more ubiquitous, fast and reliable internet demand increased. It’s not enough to watch a streaming movie in the middle of nowhere—it has to be smooth! Beginning in 2018, 5G promised to bring more channels for higher speed, lower latency, and greater bandwidth for more connected devices. But 5G wasn’t exciting for smartphone fans only: the benefits had implications for healthcare, education, smart homes, connected cars, and more. 2019: 3D Printers Revolutionize the 4th Industrial Revolution Although the technology and equipment for 3D printing were available in the mid-1980s, they were imprecise, bulky, and costly. Thirty years later, 3D printing became mainstream. This disruptive technology emerged in 2019 as part of predictive maintenance in manufacturing. Smart sensors helped identify potential problems, and 3D printers built new parts before they were needed. 2020: Passwordless Authentication Hits Big Tech For many of us, forgetting our passwords is a daily occurrence, but those days are largely behind us, thanks to the push for passwordless authentication in 2020. While the world stood still during the COVID-19 pandemic, big tech companies like Microsoft began to push for two-factor authentication and passwordless logins, and an identity management startup called Beyond Identity launched its passwordless identity platform in April of that year. Companies like Adobe and Facebook began using new security features to give us the luxury of forgetting those complicated passwords, and today, there are even more solutions to sign on faster. 2021: IoT Builds the Virtual World Technology automation through IoT didn’t begin in 2021, but this year brought a boon for intelligent everything. The IoT connects objects in the real world—navigation systems, thermostats, your virtual assistant, Alexa—with virtual identifiers on the internet. These identifiers “talk” virtually to create a web of connections and collaborations between the devices. Although IoT has been used in home-based applications, 2021 brought the technology to new areas, including manufacturing, mining, and healthcare. 2022: ChatGPT Redefines Human-Computer Interaction In 2022, ChatGPT emerged as the undeniable frontrunner and the most influential tech disruption of the year. Developed by OpenAI, this groundbreaking language model harnessed the power of the GPT-3.5 architecture to revolutionize human-computer interactions. ChatGPT evolved beyond traditional chatbots into a sophisticated conversational AI companion that can understand context, generate coherent responses, and adapt to users’ needs. Its applications spanned diverse industries, from customer support to creative writing, education, and even healthcare. As ChatGPT continuously learned and evolved, it showcased the transformative potential of artificial intelligence, leaving an indelible mark on the technology landscape of 2022 and beyond. 2023: Apple Vision Pro Unleashes the Power of Spatial Computing In 2023, spatial computing, specifically the Apple Vision Pro, emerged with plenty of fanfare. Years earlier, Apple’s visionary smartwatch had cemented Apple as the leader in wearable technology. If realized, the Apple Vision Pro’s promise is to enable users to seamlessly integrate virtual elements into their physical surroundings, unlocking unparalleled immersion and productivity. It’s a future where the days of limited screen real estate are gone; users can effortlessly interact with a vast array of applications and data in a three-dimensional, contextually aware environment. Apple’s take on spatial computing could substantiate VR’s position as an indispensable tool. In communication, productivity, and entertainment, VR wearables could change the way we perceive and interact with not just our Apple devices but technology writ large. 2024: Smart Phones Get Smarter With Generative AI Generative AI itself isn’t a new technology—we were first introduced to this transformational tech in 2022 with ChatGPT’s launch—but 2024 is the year AI will become a part of our daily lives. Android devices launched in 2024 included Gemini Live, an AI voice chat feature, Galaxy AI to suggest content correction and real-time translations, and AI photo editing features in the Google Pixel to zoom, recompose, and add items to your photos. In September, Apple introduced Apple Intelligence as part of the iOS 18 update, accompanying AI-driven features in the latest versions of the iPhone 16. These features bring the benefits of AI to consumers who may have been intimidated by complex prompting and inaccurate responses that have plagued first-generation AI models and made AI accessible to millions of smartphone users. What’s next? Tech disruptions in the 21st century have transformed our reality into a digital-first experience. Technology is changing faster than ever. Backed by a confluence of all these giant leaps forward, the future is a brave new world. Our predictions for what’s next include: Prediction 1: AI-Driven Personalization Enhances the Customer Experience According to a recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, AI is expected to drive significant business change in the coming years. Digital transformation is now more about AI integration. As AI continues to integrate deeply into our digital lives, offering personalized experiences across platforms becomes the new norm. Users are already encountering tailored content, services, and product recommendations that cater precisely to their preferences in e-commerce, entertainment, content consumption, and even healthcare. Our marketing team likes to call it “AI for the masses.” However, this era of heightened personalization is also bringing data privacy and ethical AI usage to the forefront, driving the need for responsible AI development and regulation to ensure user trust and societal well-being. Prediction 2: MedTech Improves Access & Patient Outcomes Generative AI and real-world evidence are revolutionizing healthcare by driving precision medicine and accurately predicting patient behavior. Large language models (LLMs) are stepping up as digital diagnosticians, aiding clinicians in reducing errors and refining treatment plans. Information has become the new healthcare currency in this data-driven era, crucial for tailoring care and elevating patient outcomes. Meanwhile, AI-powered medical chatbots are the unsung heroes of healthcare, automating everything from data encryption to appointment scheduling. Their functionality and cost-effectiveness make them essential for healthcare providers aiming to boost patient engagement and streamline operations. Prediction 3: Augmented Reality & Accessibility Fuel Tech for Good Building on the foundation of AI, augmented reality (AR) and accessibility features are emerging as powerful forces for social good in the tech industry. AR is moving beyond entertainment, finding applications in education, healthcare, and workforce training. For instance, AR is being used to create immersive learning experiences for students with different learning styles and to assist medical professionals in complex procedures. By focusing on AR and accessibility, businesses can not only tap into new markets and enhance user experiences but also contribute to a more inclusive and equitable digital landscape. This approach aligns with growing consumer expectations for socially responsible businesses and can drive both innovation and positive social impact. Prediction 4: Sustainable Cloud Computing Drives Green Innovation Cloud computing is evolving beyond just a tool for digital transformation—it’s becoming a cornerstone of corporate sustainability efforts. As environmental concerns take center stage, cloud technologies are imperative in the fight against climate change. Enterprises adopting green cloud practices will report significant reductions in IT-related energy costs, which can be reinvested into innovation. This shift towards sustainable cloud computing is a strategic move that resonates with consumers attracts top talent, and drives long-term business growth. More Transformative Digital Solutions At InspiringApps, we’re passionate about harnessing the power of tech’s newest disruptions to create transformative digital solutions. More than that, we’re thrilled to collaborate with our clients’ brilliant ideas and make them a reality. Could your digital product idea be the next big thing in your industry? See how we helped Fidelity National Financial create a transformative solution for the real estate industry with their award-winning product, inHere.