Frequently Asked Questions
Have a question? We may already have the answer for you.
We’ve curated some of our most frequently asked questions. If your question isn’t here click the chat icon to get connected with us right away!
The first step to creating something amazing is getting in contact with us. Speak with one of our growth strategists about the best strategies to launch your product.
Named one of the top Software Development Firms on Clutch.io, Simublade leads in innovation. From creating your dream mobile app to developing custom software on any platform - our teams are skilled to handle any technical need you may require.
Not only that, but our teams do not consist of developers who will just “take orders” or just “build to specification.” We actively engage in finding the best solution, proving it out, and owning the projects, end-to-end. Our reputation over the years has been built on our quick delivery and spot on solutions. We hope to continue to inspire businesses all over the world to dream big by building them incredible products and helping them achieve their visions.
We always conduct an initial consultation call to ensure that we’re a good fit. Things we look for include an estimated budget, a clear vision and direction, and a full commitment to the project.
All you need is an idea/vision and a ballpark estimate of what your budget is going to be.
Certainly. We understand that checking references is a crucial part of the process for our clients. That being said, we send over references after determining that we’re a good fit for you and your project.
We are based in Houston, Austin, and San Francisco.
Yes, face-to-face meetings are viable if you are located in Houston, Austin, and San Francisco. Other locations are on a case-by-case basis.
Absolutely not. That’s what we’re here for. If you happen to have development experience, we welcome it in our process, but are nonetheless prepared to guide you through the entire process step-by-step. We ask you to focus on the vision of the product while we help you bring it to life.
If we determine that we’re a good fit for your project, it should take about a week to get all the documentation signed and a few more days to assign a team to your project.
We won’t sign an NDA before our initial consultation call. It’s important that we know enough about your business to evaluate whether or not there’s a conflict with our current or past clients. Also, please understand that we talk to over 750 potential new clients a year so it’s inevitable that we hear similar ideas.
We will only sign an NDA if:
We might on a case by case basis, but it is highly unlikely. Here’s why:
Yes, we work on fixed-bid proposals and hourly based projects.
Absolutely. We perform a code audit and if your software is supported by our technology stack, then there is a possibility for a takeover.
You do. Before we start any work, we put a copyright and intellectual property agreement in place that assigns ownership of all work product and deliverables to you as long as we are paid for the services we perform.
Regardless of our expertise, part of our development process involves taking a deep dive into your business to learn the ins and outs of your industry. Nonetheless our teams are comprised of developers who have experience working in various industries, so rest assured, you’re in good hands.
What you see on our website is a list of the most popular stacks that we utilize, but we also support many others. To be sure if we can develop your product with your stack, its best to send us a quick message.
Many clients aren’t ready for development when they come to us. However, regardless of what stage you’re in, we help you determine the right thing to build, find a responsible budget, and get you to a point where you’re ready to move forward with development.
If new software - we’ll start off with an initial consultation call to size up your project and then move forward with Product Research, Conceptualization & Scoping. After this, we’ll begin development of your software. You’ll be involved every step of the way.
Yes we are currently taking on new projects.
It varies between 4-6 developers. Each project team is supported by UI/UX designers, software testers, managers, and cloud engineers.
How fast we build a product depends on a variety of factors such as the application’s complexity, completion timeline, costs, platform, and much more. For a more accurate timeline, send us a quick message about your project.
Communication between project teams and clients is not limited to interactions with the Project Manager (PM). Every member of the Simublade team is empowered to communicate with our clients. It’s very common for phone calls and messages through Slack to be exchanged throughout the work week between Simublade teams and their clients.
Below is a summary of the formal communication that is conducted throughout the project:
Choosing the right platform depends on the demographic, budget, and the purpose of your product. For example, a common pattern we see is that cost effective apps that target individuals on a budget are developed on Android and more premium apps are developed on iOS. This is by no means an easy decision to make, that’s why we help navigate you through this entire process in our initial consultation call.
The Agile Methodology is a core part of our development process. It allows us to create a working software solution as soon as possible and then iterate through different versions of the product and add new features. This gives our clients a chance to examine, test, and provide feedback on their product early and often throughout the development process.
We believe that establishing communication and planning rhythms is the most important aspect of successful project management. Our rhythms include the following:
Although your primary point of contact will be the product manager assigned to your project, you will be communicating with everyone on the team. Everyone on our teams are empowered to communicate directly with clients to help move things along, maintain transparency, and retain our flat organization structure.
You can be involved in every part of the development process or be completely hands off. Every project has a slack channel and we can constantly ask you for feedback to implement into your product or we can send you milestone updates as we normally would. It really depends on your wants and needs as a client.
We expect clients to be actively involved in their projects. Although we take a deep dive into your business as a part of our development process, you are ultimately the one bringing the expertise about your business and market to the table. Involvement includes weekly emails or calls and availability via Slack during regular business hours.
Client feedback is incredibly important throughout the development process and we encourage you to provide it even early-on when the features are still rough. Your feedback offers us context about what’s important to you and your business. It helps us plan, prioritize, and implement features, while staying tied to your needs.
Short answer - apps that aren’t complex can usually be built as a Hybrid, but as complexity increases it’s better to have the app built separately on Android & iOS.
Long answer - Android, iOS, & Hybrid have very different coding aspects to them which impact cost and flexibility. Depending on the complexity, budget, and target audience of your app, you may want to choose one option over the other. We’ve provided some information below to help you figure out what’s best for you. If you’re still confused or have any questions, feel free to contact us here and we’ll help you figure out which option best suits your needs. Keep in mind that if you decide to choose more than one option (e.g. iOS & Android), we’ll heavily discount the price of the second option, regardless of when you choose it.
If your app relies on early revenue or targets one of the countries listed above, iOS is a safe first option. There are fewer apps to compete with and higher chances of getting to revenue quickly.
Again, we recommend a hybrid build as a cost effective option for simpler apps. If your app is more complex, we recommend choosing a single platform first, and then waiting to build the next one for a reduced price.
Yes. This kind of flexibility is very important and could determine the success of a project. However, keep in mind that major changes after we kick-off development can potentially affect budget or schedule.
Absolutely. At Simublade we believe that open, transparent communication is the cornerstone to successful software projects. You’ll always know what’s happening on your project and you’ll be in constant contact with your team through Slack. It’s not unusual for our Project Leads or Project Managers to call their clients several times a week. We also provide weekly status reviews and updates when a milestone or feature is completed.
Software is rarely ever “finished.” We know that our clients and their users will continue to have great ideas throughout the development process and after the initial delivery. As your business changes, your software will need to evolve and adapt.
After product delivery, we provide a time frame in which we handle bug fixes, maintenance, and support for your product. Beyond that we offer life cycle support plans that go the length of the project and continue to maintain it. Although the products we build are robust and built to withstand almost anything, we encourage long-term consumer oriented products to utilize support plans due to the high volume of usage of their product. Nonetheless, we always enjoy keeping long term relationships with our clients and watching their product grow to achieve their long-term vision.
Test plans are put together at the beginning of projects and QA staff is involved from Day 1. We test your product throughout development by using code reviews, paired programming, and regression testing to ensure that quality code is being written at all times.
Absolutely. We’re always happy to update, improve, and further develop your product.
We use a private, internal Gitlab repository to store and manage all of our project source code and Git for source control. This helps us make product deployment easier.
This is not something we do unless it’s for an official security clearance. When resumes of team members are requested, this is a red flag that our prospective client would really prefer a staffing relationship. As mentioned above, this is something we try to avoid. Rest assured, you’ll have interactions with many different team members before we actually begin work on your project. If you’re not excited about your team before we begin work, then we’re likely not a good fit for you.
Simublade’s clients are very diverse. We take on projects of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises in any industry. We enjoy working on complex projects that have the potential to create a lot of value for our clients. If your project is critical to the mission of your business it’s likely a good fit. We excel in taking on projects where user experience is critical and fit one of the following technological domains - Web, Mobile, or Hardware & IOT.
Costs are tailored to the needs of each client and go beyond factors such as the platform, complexity, and timeline. We understand that custom software development is a big investment. We’ll help you mitigate risk, make smart trade-offs, and get the maximum value out of your budget. That being said, you can get a quote of how much your product will cost by simply filling out the contact form and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
We understand that everyone has great ideas, but we are not interested in partnering for equity.
Our projects run from a few months to a year or more. Timeline’s, like costs, are difficult to predict so we recommend sending us a quick message about your product and we can give you the estimated time frame in which it can be completed.
Whether a project has a total fixed budget or is being billed hourly, we charge a percentage of the total projects fees whenever a milestone is completed. We feel this is the most straightforward way to bill. In turn, this also helps ensure that everyone (including clients) are focused on the most valuable features at any given time as opposed to encouraging scope creep. It takes everyone’s awareness of the budget and how we’re tracking it to keep the project on-target.
When paying for custom software, you should have the mindset of paying a team to design and develop the first instance of your product. Custom software projects are filled with risk, including: building the right product, funding and schedule risks, third-party integrations, and technical solutions that need to be proved out.
Remember, you are paying your team to help you mitigate these risks, not to financially own them. Each sprint or release is not a guarantee of a finished, bug-free product. However, we do have standards, best practices, and many rounds of rapid testing in place that encourage each team to do their best to build a high-quality product.
Our teams are extremely intelligent and experienced; they do their best to accurately build your product. With each iteration, we’ll take what we’ve learned and quickly integrate new insights to maintain a high quality product. We encourage our clients to embrace bugs and risks, knowing that we will do everything we can to address both.
Again, after product delivery, we provide a time frame in which we handle bug fixes, maintenance, and support for your product. Beyond that we offer life cycle support plans that go the length of the project and continue to maintain it.
Communication, iterating through regular feedback loops, and staying lean have attributed to our high degree of success and our reputation of quick, spot-on solutions.
Simublade has a broad skill set, which gives us the power to explore options and select the best languages, platforms, and tools for each project. We do the majority of our work with the following tech stack:
Yes, we do. We can build a native iOS/Android solution, or a hybrid one. If you choose the hybrid path, we typically use React Native to develop for both the iOS & Android platforms with the same core code. This dramatically cuts down on development time and costs, but sacrifices current/future complexity for the app.
Of course. There’s a list of some recent clients on our website. Once we know there’s a good fit and we get a mutual NDA in place, we can send over a complete list of references so you have more to work with than just case studies.
Back to top of the page