Author: Nikita M

Here’s an interview with Richard, the owner of Community Hill. Richard’s entrepreneurship has been going on for 10 years – since the times Amazon was selling books. Now he’s working with Fora Soft, which is his last hope.

What do you have to expect going into work with Fora Soft? What can we teach an experienced entrepreneur who had worked with many developers before coming to Fora Soft? The answers are in the interview.

I also tried my best to find out the problems Richard might’ve had with Fora Soft, so that the feedback is truly genuine. It turned out to be a difficult task, as everything has been spot on. Enjoy!

Nikita: What is Community Hill and who is it for? 

Richard: Thank you for this opportunity. Community Hill is an online platform with people of various communities, mainly the towns and the villages where people live. People sell various items, usually household items, including furniture, vehicles and others. Service providers post their services. For instance, electricians. So on that platform, people post everything, and if anyone is interested, contact them. They plan a time and location to meet and then they do the transaction. That’s what Community Hill is about. We’re building the community together, you know? 

Nikita: Cool. So you’ve come to Fora Soft. When did this happen? 

Richard: That was last year. Probably August or September? I went to an online auction platform first. I was looking for a team that could really make a good product. And then one of the team members of Fora Soft contacted me. He told me that we’d get in touch. I’m glad that we got it started. So I’ve been with you for 9-10 months. And I’m still with you because we have to do the 2nd phase. 

Nikita: That’s very good to hear. But before Fora Soft, was there any company that you were going to work with? Perhaps, Fora Soft wasn’t your first choice? 

Richard: Yes. At first I contacted one of the programmers. That platform where I went has so many programmers. You can never know whether someone really knows what he’s doing or whether he’s also outsourcing somewhere else. So the first person didn’t really do a good job at all. So I kind of lost hope in these individual freelancers. I decided that I needed a team of people that can really do something. And when I checked on that, all of a sudden Fora Soft showed up. Nothing else showed up, actually. I read the reviews on Fora Soft and it started from there. I didn’t look for anything else. So, that’s how we met.

Nikita:  You mentioned having the team in Fora Soft, a project team consists of developers, project managers, designers, QA… We’ve got marketing, promotion and so on and so forth. During the production of your app, did you ever feel that you really need all those people? Or was it like, “I don’t really understand why I need so many people, and I’m good with like 2 or 3 of them, not the whole team?” 

Richard: I needed all of them. Let me give you an example. For instance, designing a logo. I’m not an artist. I don’t even have the knowledge of how a good logo should look. So I just needed everyone to come on board because I didn’t know much about these things. I didn’t know how the best user stories should be. So I just needed a team of everyone to be on board.

And then when I was told that we even have testers, I was so glad that they had that team.

Nikita: Over the time of us working together, was there anything that you wish that Fora Soft would improve, maybe some downsides of working with us? 

Richard: I haven’t come across anything because Fora Soft is good at communicating. You keep in touch. I always communicate with the programmer, the project manager, the designer. Because of that constant communication, there hasn’t been a gap for doubt. Like every time I have an issue or an idea, I usually ask them and then we find a solution right away. We could also find a date to have a meeting and talk about it.

Nikita: Good to hear. Let’s talk a little bit about your app. So it’s an iOS app. Are you planning on going to Android or Web or something else? 

Richard: Oh, yeah, definitely. If we get more funding, I want us to finish this 2nd phase of iOS and then I also want us to do the Android version or the web version as well. 

Nikita: Okay. And Community Hill is currently an MVP, right? 

Richard: Correct. 

Nikita: During this MVP, did you have any people to test the app? Maybe yourself, your family, or friends. 

Richard: Yeah, sure. It’s been myself at the moment. I haven’t been able to ask any family members to test, so it’s just me and the programmer for now.

Nikita: I guess you did come across some bugs because, unfortunately, they’re imminent. Do you feel that there were lots of bugs or were they kept to a minimum? 

Richard: Well, at some point, as I was testing the app – the MVP –  it crashed. And then I mentioned it to the programmer, and he said that he was going to check it out to find a solution for it. Other than that, I didn’t see any other bugs on my side. Maybe on their side, they might have seen some because so many people were testing, so they could identify more issues. But on my side, I didn’t see anything else. 

Nikita: Right. And after the developer said that he was going to look into the problem, did he keep his promise? 

Richard: Yes, he told me that they have also identified other issues and they are going to work on them. And we are yet to have the meeting this week (the meeting went peachy, Fora Soft resolved everything). We’re gonna discuss the issues that they found. So I would say he kept his promise. 

Nikita: Is there something you want to add or say about Fora Soft that relate to our other clients?

Richard:

I would say that any anyone who comes Fora Soft should be really available for constant communication.

That’s what really helps to keep the project going. If one is really busy and not able to keep in touch, I think it will be so hard to keep the project moving. It’s all about communication. You’re on the same page with the programmers. Your expectations and their expectations are on the same level. I think that’s the most important thing – be ready to keep in touch with all the team members. Starting with that, with the analytic, then programmers, and all those people, it’s about communication. 

Nikita: Right. And actually, I have one more question that I kind of forgot to ask in the beginning. Richard, do you yourself have some kind of technical background? 

Richard: A little bit. I’ve always had the passion of online businesses. I started out venturing into online businesses like 10 years ago, those years when Amazon was just getting started, when they were just selling books. I had this idea of the market place, but I didn’t have the money. So I reached out to the local programmers and they really did do a good job. They didn’t do what I really wanted. So I’ve been trying out this field of online businesses for a long time. During that time, of course, I’ve come to learn a little bit of what programing is all about, what a programmer is and all that kind of stuff. I’ve developed a little bit of technical knowledge in that field. But I don’t really have that much technical background, just a little bit, only because I’ve been trying out this field for a very long time. I must say that Fora Soft is my last try. If it fails, I’m out of it because it’s been like 10 years. I’m trying this out since the time Amazon was selling books. I was building ideas on how to make a good marketplace. It’s been a long time. So I would say Fora Soft is my last try. If it fails, I let it go. 

Nikita: Well, I guess I can speak on behalf of Fora Soft, that we’ll do our best to satisfy your needs. And actually what I wanted to ask is that you barely have some technical background. You are not a developer by any means, as far as I understand. Did you ever feel that you are lacking the skills to produce Community Hill with Fora Soft? Or did it feel like you don’t actually need to understand the codes or anything like that? You can just give Fora Soft an assignment and expect a result, and you can give this assignment using some human language, not developer language. 

Richard: Yeah, I knew that I didn’t really need to be a developer, but I knew what final product should look like. Because, like I said, I’ve been trying out these things. I’ve seen how Amazon has been changing the way you interact with the app, the website, all those things that they do on their marketplaces. So I’ve kind of got the knowledge on how the best product should look like. So I said, I don’t really have to be a developer, but I know how a final product should look like. 

Nikita: Can you please rate Fora Soft on a scale of ten in terms of communication, professionalism, and determination in the project’s involvement, perhaps. 

Richard: Oh, it’s ten out of ten. The local developers and freelancers I interacted with before I came to Fora Soft, they didn’t even tell me about user stories.

I first heard about user stories from Fora Soft.

I’d never heard that word. The freelancers I reached out to before, they didn’t even know these things. Like they didn’t have the professional knowledge of how a project should run. They didn’t even give me a development plan. I first saw a development plan from Fora Soft. These freelancers didn’t have those things. They didn’t have that kind of communication. So I’m glad that I chose Fora Soft. The rating is 10 out of 10. 

So, that’s it! Wanna, just like Richard, enjoy all the best that Fora Soft has to offer? Make sure to contact us using the contact form!

Not convinced yet? Read more customer interviews:

Jesse, Vodeo – a movie renting platform
Anthony, Speakk – a mobile messenger that doesn’t consume traffic
Jan, AppyBee – a booking platform
Naseem, Mobytap – a business video review platform
Ali, TapeReal – a video social network

We’re happy to present our interview with Jan from AppyBee. Jan is our client who has a history of coming to us, then parting with us, and then coming back. What didn’t Jan like about Fora Soft the first time, why did he decide to return, and what is he thinking about our collaboration now? Read the interview to find out.

Hi Jan, tell us about AppyBee.

It’s an online reservation system. with which we can literally book anything. An online event, a project, group session, or person. On top of that, it’s not only booking. Communicate with clients, send push notifications, messages. Pay by bundles or smart subscriptions.

We, as a B2B company, deliver website widgets and a native app.

We’re currently focused on the sports business. We have many types of businesses, such as co-working spaces, dog-walking services, and solariums.

By sports, did you mean pro sports, like football or basketball or gyms?

Both. The main thing is personal trainers, but one can also book a yoga class, a traditional gym, where you can pay a monthly fee to train. We also provide a solution for the current, corona-affected times. If you can’t buy a subscription, you just pay for a visit. Many types of business models, yeah.

Was Fora Soft your 1st choice?

We started with Fora 6 years ago. We weren’t really experienced back then. We had an idea. We worked with Fora Soft for a couple years and wanted to develop an MVP, and that’s what we went with. The problem is, we went with it for too long, instead of moving on. Fora Soft should’ve advised us to change, but they didn’t do that. And, as I said, we were inexperienced. So things were messy, so we decided to leave Fora Soft. We weren’t happy with them.

We then tried all kinds of solutions. Outstaffing people, freelancers, other agencies, a combination of those. In the end, it was a disaster. We have a saying where I’m originally from: “I had it, I didn’t know. I knew it, I didn’t have it anymore”.

Everything has to fit. It’s not enough to have 1 good developer, 1 good project manager. Everything has to work together: QA, design… We burned a lot of money on it.

During that time there was some info we needed from Fora Soft. What I felt is “oh crap, I need to ask them something but we’re not working anymore..”. But I got all I needed instantly, they helped us a lot.

Then we decided to go back. There was one guy there, a PM who was always there. He gave us confidence that they have it under control.

We changed technology from Bootstrap to React. React.JS, React.Native, PWA (Progressive Web Apps). So, I asked the PM if they can handle it, and he said yeah. And then he explained everything. It felt like it was a Friday evening after a hard week. You sit out there and you have that vodka. 

I should have returned to Fora Soft much earlier. Fora Soft has everything under control. Everything under one roof. It all works perfectly. 

So the story is like a boyfriend and a girlfriend. At first, it doesn’t work out, but then you end up married.

By the way, the reason I worked with an agency is that I just wanted them to solve my problems and handle the answer in the correct and professional way. So, in another company, we worked with 5 different developers within 3 months. There also was a case where we changed a huge architectural part, which was a major update. It was really buggy and slow. In fact, thinking back I’m realizing that it was OK, but back then I didn’t.

In Fora Soft we worked with the same team all the time. For me, it’s a sign that people are happy with the company. They like what they’re doing. You guys grew from 30 people to 90 people (editor’s note: it’s 110 people now 🙂 ). So, before it was a mess. You could say that we had a relationship, it didn’t work out, but then eventually it did. Now we’re back together for 5-6 months, but if I’m being honest, we should’ve done this much earlier. The breakup had to happen, but here we are.

Compare before and after working with Fora Soft. Before the first time we worked together, even.

In the beginning, there was some technology, and we didn’t know what the usual way was. What we noticed in the beginning, we had a Trello board. It’s nice, but it’s like this (shows a pack of sticky papers), like moving this around. Then we moved to another company. They taught us that with Jira we can do this, with that we can do that. They overdid it. I felt like I was wasting hours on all that. That was the main difference. I wanted to go back, I was never unhappy with the PM. He’s the good guy, he was also there to help. It’s one of the reasons I went back. He gave me confidence.

Now it’s the same project, which is important. I also got more people who’re helping me. I get to talk with the business analyst, with the designer, with the front-end, and the back-end. It’s a complete solution.

The advantage of Fora Soft is that the team’s communication system is really good.

You talk to each other within teams. It’s difficult to have an agency, an out-staffer, a freelancer. It works, but not efficiently. So here we are with the comparison.

Can you share any measurable figures, such as a number of crushes, clients, or revenue?

The revenue is difficult because another large part is the marketing, and the development cannot change that. 

However, what we do notice is the amount of money we paid to Fora Soft, let’s say, amount X. I don’t wanna name numbers now. I see it now: I pay half and I get double. I got much more value. but not only the value. It’s also the stability. You have confidence. Right now all the things that are not efficient are being solved. I get information back. So I have a confident feeling now. I sleep well now. What I’m saying is, I don’t know it’s not only the measurable things, but I sleep well.

I’m going to tell you about one situation that happened at the previous company. They did work for us. They had one guy that also was working for us from that agency full-time. I asked him questions, but I didn’t get any information back. So we were doing tasks and ping each other within Jira. We had a daily meeting, and I was asking: why aren’t you reacting to any questions we’re asking in Jira? He said, ‘ I turned off the notifications’.

We’re paying a lot of money, it’s full-time, we’re with 5-6 people in a daily meeting and he gives an answer like that. I can tell you one thing. If he said that at the table, I think it would finish differently. You should be happy that it was online and with distance. So with software you cannot just move. It’s not another jacket you could buy. It’s not possible. So you really need to think about which company you are gonna work with and it needs to be a match. You also need to understand a company. The company needs to understand our culture, but we also need to understand the company’s culture and that needs to be a match. That’s really important. The expectations. And what I also noticed is that you have different projects. On one hand, you have short term projects, maybe 1-2 months. Easily done. But you also have work such as what we do. These are long-term projects. Important structural things that one needs to understand and move forward step by step. Test it thoroughly, think about what the clients have, move the priorities, and do some mind exchange, like what we’re doing with the business analyst right now. This was also a big difference. Back then you guys didn’t have that. Fora Soft didn’t have any business analyst that I talked to. But now I get to talk with the assistant project manager. We discuss everything. From time to time when I have an idea. I don’t share it. I want you to let me see what they’re gonna come up with. 

A lot of times, I get a solution from you guys which is better than mine. That’s a good thing.

Sometimes you have the feeling that it doesn’t go fast enough. Those are the important things. And as a company you can’t only point fingers. There’s a lot of things that we can also do better on communication. I also asked the question: what can we do better as an organization? How would you want us to deliver the information? Are we happy with it? Do we need to do something more? This is also important to have a good match. You cannot only say that this needs to be done and then finish. You really need to give correct information so they really understand what you want.

Were there any difficulties while working with Fora Soft, aside from that MVP thing?

The difficulties of working with Fora Soft. What I find difficult, but that’s not only connected to Fora Soft, is that I would like to, meet the team once a month. I’m looking for a situation how I can do that. So just sit down 1 day, 2 days, once a month, maybe once in 3 months to do a structural visit. To sit down with the guys face to face, to see who’s who. And then maybe pop up some ideas, have a board, talk, drink vodka and see what comes out. The difficulty is that you’re always behind the screen and talking. So that’s on the one hand, on the other hand, I cannot think about any difficulties. 

Qualities and things such as communication, professionalism, and determination are very important when it comes to any type of project work. Can you maybe rate us on a scale of 10 on those qualities and add something else that you see important here?

– What I would see as the quality, and I can really say that, because I had a lot of companies in between. I had three or four agencies, freelancers, and outstaffing people I worked with. I even had, not gonna name names, really had to fly in the “experts” to have a problem solved, which cost in the meantime. So I can definitely say it’s a 9 on communication.  In the beginning, I didn’t understand why you guys don’t want me to talk immediately with the developer. I do communicate but mostly need to go to the project manager. Back then I didn’t see it. Right now I absolutely see the advantages. because he will arrange everything.  I talk with him daily, and he will divide the work, and it’s efficient. It’s perfectly efficient. He’s always aware of everything that happens, good or bad. And that’s the communication which makes stuff more efficient.

Would you recommend Fora Soft to your friends or colleagues who are interested in a video application?

I would recommend Fora Soft to friends, family, and colleagues. I would not recommend Fora Soft to my competition.

That’s a good one, a good one. Thank you.

I think we have a contract also on that, right? So no competition. I wouldn’t recommend you guys to my competition but I do recommend to my business, my associates, and everybody else.

Maybe anything else that you would like to add?

– No, no, actually not.  As I said, seeing the team, that would maybe change, to have a drink from time to time, advice from Fora Soft. I would also expect we’re gonna organize a specific day for all the clients and whatnot it would be nice to go. And Mr Sapunov brings a big bottle of vodka, some special Russian vodka I’m dying to drink. Other than that I’m all good.

Thank you very much. My sincerest thanks for your time. It was a pleasant experience talking to you, and I will see you later.

We created Speakk, a chat and voice messenger for South Africa that doesn’t consume internet data. Here’s our interview with Anthony, Speakk CEO. He says why he chose Fora Soft over many other companies, how we overcame difficulties with the app, and how Fora solves issues.

Tell me about Speakk. What is it?

Speakk is an innovative app in South Africa. People chat and send messages and voicemails there. Similar to WhatsApp. However, users don’t pay for any of the mobile data used. Data is very expensive. Millions of South Africans walk around with smartphones but they can’t afford to use them just because of how expensive data is. That’s why we developed Speakk. For them to not pay for data used.

How it works is a simple chat app like WhatsApp. Sign up, send text messages, voice messages. We have ads, so every 8 messages or so you’ll see an ad popping up. So we pay for the data and we make money through advertisements.

How many users?

When we signed up, we got nearly 100k users over a month. Then we had a slight change in business plans. We built another app using that technology. This new app was for the educational market. We had great opportunities with COVID. Fortunate negatives, so to speak. There were many public schools in SAR where kids had no opportunity of communicating with teachers in lockdown. So we used our existing technology for that market as well. Fora Soft helped us do that.

Was Fora Soft your first choice?

No, it wasn’t. We considered many software development companies, both locally in SAR and overseas. What was very interesting for us, we gave a very simple brief to developers. We wanted to see how they understood the brief and base on that, what technologies they’d recommend and how it would cost.

Out of all the companies we’ve contacted, Fora was the only company to really grasp the challenge of what we’re doing and give us an accurate quote.

That’s why you ended up with us, right?

Yeah. Hundred percent. So, it was really because of the technical competence, we landed up being impressed by a number of other aspects working with them, but initially, you were much more technically competent than any of the other developers we’d spoken to. We had a look at your portfolio of existing work, which was not only quite wide and quite varied across different industries, but it did overlap somewhat in what we were doing as well. So, you had the experience in the space that we are in as well, which helped.

Can you please share your “before” and “after” working with us?

We don’t really have it before and after, because we’ve been partnering with Fora Soft from the beginning of this project. So really we worked with Fora Soft for the minimum viable product. We worked with them to create something that would be as light as possible but would still work. And that was the first version of the product that we created with Fora. We then evolved the product and we moved on to new products. The relationship has evolved as the products have evolved, but there wasn’t any before Fora Soft. They were really the beginning of the project for us. 

Are there any measurable figures that you could share with us that can be disclosed? Like we’ve talked about a number of users, maybe a number of crashes, revenue numbers?

Because our business has changed slightly, it’s difficult to share a lot of that, but we could say that there have been millions of messages sent in our app since we started. We accumulated that really quickly. We were a trending app on Google Play Store for quite a while. We had, at one stage, many thousands of downloads every single day. I can’t think of any other metrics that we could share. The app grew very quickly at the beginning.

Were there any difficulties while developing the program? If yes, able to overcome those difficulties with Fora Soft?

Yeah. Like any project, we had a number of difficulties. One of the big challenges we had to overcome was that the app uses this reverse billing technology, which has very, very specific technical requirements. It led to a number of issues at the beginning of the project which were unforeseen on our side and on the Fora Soft side. But it’s something that we did work with Fora Soft over a number of months to get through.

We ended up with a much more sustainable, robust product at the end that we are quite proud of. That version works better. 

I don’t know if you want me to talk about this, but the other issue we had is that we did have some issues with Fora Soft in terms of the initial specifications of some new projects that we worked on. There were some of the features that were underspecified that led to us underbudgeting the project. It had a number of ramifications for the business. Fora Soft was very apologetic about that. They rectified the billing we were on, on some kind of an agreement to help us through some of the budgetary constraints. Then going forward, we didn’t have that problem again. I think you realized where the error came from and you were very careful about that going forward.

Professionalism, determination, and communication are very important when it comes to any IT project. With us working with you and you working with us, could you rate us on the scale of 10 on those criteria and maybe add some other criteria that you deem necessary?

So in terms of professionalism, Fora Soft was very professional throughout.

We’ve dealt with many different people in the organization and everyone we’ve dealt with has been great, very professional. Obviously, in a long-term working relationship like we’ve had there, there have been one or two issues and those issues had been resolved very, very quickly. I’d say Fora has been incredibly professional in terms of communication as well. We were concerned that our company is based in South Africa. Fora is based in Russia. There would be language constraints and language issues in dealing with Fora. This didn’t prove to be a problem at all. We set up a Slack channel to communicate with our project manager when we’re in the middle of the big dev cycles,. We were speaking to those project managers throughout the day on a daily basis over Slack.

The communication was pretty much flawless.

When we did need to have a face-to-face meeting, we hopped on Skype and we were able to look each other in the eye and to speak a bit more casually. Communication hasn’t been an issue at all. You know, I think the only communication issues that were introduced every now and again was just due to some of the technical requirements that we had on our side that are very unique to the mobile environment that we are working in. I must say, just on that point, I was very impressed that South Africa has a very unique set of mobile users. We have people walking around with the latest and greatest smartphones. And we have people walking around with cell phones that are many, many years old.

Would you turn to Fora Soft with any other project or maybe recommend us to somebody else?

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And we have done other projects with Fora Soft and we have recommended Fora Soft to others as well. So not only would we do it, but we have done it already.

Our copywriter Nikita talked to Naseem, the CEO & Founder of MobyTap, a video review platform. On MobyTap, businesses can show how much they love their customers, and how much their customers love them back. Naseem came to us in 2016, and after 5 years of cooperation, he definitely has something to tell us!

Was Fora Soft your first choice?

Amazingly it was Vadim (the Sales Head at Fora Soft) who found me. I was on an online auction platform; I had lots of offers, and I chose my company. But when Vadim approached me, I was like, okay, let’s chat. His personality and everything he did was professional. I thought ‘even though we’ve done the contract with somebody else, why not.’ He asked me to give Fora Soft an opportunity, and I did. And that’s where the ball got rolling.

So, it was Vadim who swooped in and won you with his personality, right?

Yeah, he’s shown me some examples of the work you’ve done, I was really impressed with that.

Share any before and after working with us?

It was my 1st time developing an app. I’ve been in the recycling business for the past 15 years. So when the idea came to me, I thought recycling and video apps are worlds apart. But since my customers love what we do, that’s the easiest way to get feedback and reviews. And I thought, yeah, make an app. Sounds simple, but when you get into it, you realize that it’s not as simple.

Can you share any measurable figures, such as revenue, number of crashes, etc?

Not many crashes. It’s just been a continuous improvement. So all we’ve been doing is improving the app, making it better. And your team is fabulous. It was all about communication, and getting my message to you. You guys made life very easy, and that’s what the business is about. It took a couple of years but the job was well done, compared to the other company I had used. I literally had to cancel them and let you do the whole app.

Hands down, you guys know what you’re doing.

Those guys took a lot of time and messed up. And you guys clearly showed that you’re professional in what you do. It makes me very happy.

Thank you for your kind words. Were there any difficulties while working with us?

The only difficulty was the technology wasn’t there, so we were doing things that were 4-5 years ahead. Things that Google was catching up with. We got stuck where we needed to make it simpler for the users to input the domain name of any company in the world. If you’re doing a review, the app would find where you’re located and find the local business you’re reviewing. Nobody in the world had done that. And Google, just that year, had finished their SDK for Android. We were stuck for 4-5 months. How do we get the whole world’s domain names into the app? Then the idea came. Well, Google’s doing an SDK, could we use it? And then your team said, “We could do it”. Several months of work are saved.

You guys literally saved me a fortune by coming up with an idea of how to get the whole world’s domain names into the app.

And it works today! Because of you, guys.

Can you rate us in terms of professionalism, communication, and dedication?

Not even thinking about the score. It’s 10/10 straight up.

Do you have anything else to add?

The best thing with Fora Soft is aftercare.

You’ve raised the bar so high now, I expect it from every company.

The aftercare was so great, and the communication was amazing, it blew me away. Even in the UK here, in England, we don’t get that aftercare.

You guys looked after me and literally held my hand. Any issues that arose, you fixed them instantly, it’s like waving a magic wand. You don\t get that much in the tech world.

You’ve proved that you can find a good company online that will do what you want with your budget. If you got a small budget or a high budget, you’ve managed it perfectly. I think it’s been 5 years now.

So, if somebody needs a video app, I instantly think of you and pass them your number and details.

Thank you very much! Even though recycling and video apps are, as you said, worlds apart, we do wish you all the best.

Got a project idea of your own? Maybe, you’ve tried to make it come to fruition but are dissatisfied with the results? Contact us using the form on this website, and we’d be happy to review your case and offer the best solution.

Kindly follow us on Instagram as we share a lot of information regarding projects. You can also DM us if that’s your preferred method of communication!

Our copywriter Nikita sat down with Ali, TapeReal CEO & Founder from Vancouver, to talk about his experience of working with Fora Soft. Ali came to us in August 2020, he wanted to create a video social media. This is how Ali describes the product:

TapeReal is a better version of YouTube. Like,if YouTube was built today instead of 2005, for the people of today. That’s what we’re trying to build.

Was Fora Soft your 1st choice?

No, it wasn’t. Before this, I was working with a number of developers and other software developing companies with varying degrees of success. We got some MVP prototypes.

I decided to turn to Fora Soft because I was impressed by their expertise in streaming technologies, the focus on quality, and their commitment to client’s success. 

What about your “before” and “after” of working with us?

Before working with Fora Soft, our development sprints were planned a little differently. I’d put together the requirements for design, but I wasn’t involved in user stories.

With Fora Soft we planned our sprints more effectively, they were more precise, the user stories were very clear.

The project manager provided a clear development plan about what is going to be achieved on certain days and certain milestones. So that part, I think, helped make the sprints more successful. The team was very involved in the whole planning process and provided a lot of great feedback as well.

Can you share any measurable figures? Like, profit, number of users, how many crashes?

In AppStore, we generated more positive reviews. The app was stabilized in many respects as well. We were facing a lot of issues with call recording and also with solo recording features. The team was able to fix some of those bugs and stabilize that experience for the community as well.

Were there any difficulties while developing the app?

We had an existing codebase, so it took some time for the team to familiarize themselves with the codebase.

You know, whenever there were challenges, the team did their best to overcome them, or they presented alternative options and solutions.

They communicated very effectively. In the beginning, it was just a matter of us getting used to each others’ communication styles and timelines. So, there were some miscommunications, some expectations from both ends that were a little bit challenging. Once we got to the standardized process, we had some clear expectations. The project ran pretty smoothly thereafter.

With TapeReal being quite an unusual project, communication is king. Determination and professionalism are very important, too. Rate us on those qualities, and maybe add some others?

In terms of communication, professionalism, and determination, nobody is perfect. I’d like to give you a score of 10, but obviously, we’re human beings. We make mistakes sometimes, but the main thing is that we learn from them, and we overcome them. In that respect, I really appreciated working with you guys. In terms of communication, you’re very proactive. The weekly status reports are really helpful, kinda gives you an idea of what was achieved, what’s planned for next week. You always communicated on Skype effectively. The professionalism also was always there.

The team treated the project like their own. They wanted to see the client succeed.

As for determination, I’d say that when there’s a technical challenge, the team enjoys trying to solve it. They put forth the best solution for it, which is great. If they’re unable to do it, you guys present the options or the alternatives for achieving the result in the end. In that respect, I also really appreciated the eye on the budget. Obviously, being a startup, we have limited funds. The team took that into consideration whenever they planned all their sprints, so I appreciate that, too.

Thanks! On behalf of the whole Fora Soft team, I wish you all the best with your project. I believe it has a great future.

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