Building challenging applications for our partners lets us go outside our comfort zone and rethink our approach and processes for software design, development and delivery.
Innovation was always our key objective from the moment we started in 2010. Thanks to  this, through the years, we have helped our clients in building and upgrading their products.
Thanks to our long-lasting knowledge and experience sharing in product development areas, we built a culture that allows us to learn faster than single-product companies. As a result, we can build software products more efficiently.

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About *us*

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Our *Awards*

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The #1 healthtech provider in Africa

> *"Look at the bigger picture"* 
> *Francis Underwood, House of Cards*

## Abstract
This article has been created as a document for Appunite investors, employees and partners as an attempt to predict the future of product development and how Appunite will adjust to make it happen.

## Summary
Over the coming decades and across the world professional tech product builder companies will replace internal product departments.

SaaS and subscription businesses will emerge in traditional businesses based on innovative products that will increase the productivity and well-being of people.

All of us will collaborate on ventures they solely believe in, supported by collectives that will help them build their careers and exchange experiences.

Companies will look for long-term cooperation based on joint venture projects that will solve big problems using technological achievements.

## Startups are reinventing the wheel all the time
A real estate broker who wants to build a second Empire State Building to rent office space, won't start with hiring an HR department to look for architects and construction workers. Instead, they'll seek a company with know-how in skyscraper construction.

There are staggering numbers of founders who can’t take their ideas off the ground because they don’t have the strong technical skills to build out their often disruptive ideas. They sometimes look for a technical founder that isn't committed the same way to the idea as the original founder is.

We work with our customers as if we were an internal team. This speeds up time to market as well as focus on the results of the venture. Building highly performant teams is hard, but Appunite can build them more efficiently because of experience and knowledge of inner motivations of each Appuniter. This reduces risks for founders exposed to building a team from the ground up. Our approach allows us to effectively move starting from product-market validation phases, through finding market-fit and ending with further growth of the product.

Most startups are losing a lot of energy to build teams responsible for their software, while those startups don't strictly solve software problems. They should focus on the transformation of the industry they work with. Is it logistics, communication, real estate, housing, medicine, poverty, goods exchange — technology is here to solve human problems. It shouldn’t be an obstacle.

## Appunite singular focus
Build the best teams to deliver software.

We are tech veterans that know how to create products, help businesses emerge, and transform their industries. Most software houses are optimizing software creation by standardizing their processes to deliver as many tasks received from a business without taking into account if these tasks are beneficial or harmful to those businesses. From our experience, businesses at different stages have different requirements from tech teams. We would like to build and share best practices on how to create products and teams from the ground up and become the best knowledge center in this area.

We don't want to compete with Accenture, Capgemini, Luxsoft, Infosys or Netguru. They are focused on staffing, project execution and skill allocation. We build products and teams around them with our partners to deliver software. We should extract best practices from each team we build, replicate them and further improve the best software creation processes for any business.

## Improving our service
We want to integrate deeply with our customers as in our experience it creates the best results for businesses we work with. We want our intentions to be clear to the partners from the moment we start cooperation - long-lasting cooperation based on mutual gains. Our service needs to be way better than if they created their own product teams. We need to understand their vision, strategy and execute it well with tech context. Understand opportunities we get with the newest technology developments and use it solving business problems. Be focused on the outcomes of the business we aim to help.

We want to improve overall inefficiencies that exist in the software development sector. As a company we create autonomous teams that can experiment and learn from each other. We want to share this knowledge and experience internally and externally. We want to discuss verbally and in a written form how the products should be created. How to communicate with business, how to understand their problems, how to create environments for experimentation, how to pick the technology, how to transform it, predict problems, solve them, build engineers and product people careers, design software and products — to create best results for the businesses. Only a handful of companies do share the knowledge of how to build the best products. To transform the industry, we need to be the best one.

## Investors frown upon outsourcing
Investors traditionally look for tech teams inside startups. Taking the skyscraper example, the investor should be inspecting the building after it is built, not the team that has built it. Over time, our approach will deliver the more efficient way of creating products, that's why it will have a positive effect on how our services are perceived by investors. Investors look at ROI, sustainability, effectiveness that in our approach to building teams and products will give much better results. We will be able to reduce the risks that the investors may face building the team for software development on their own.

## Finding a talent
People want to work in intrusive environments, not in extrusive, corporate ones. The best talents want to feel the purpose of work. They want freedom on what they work on, not punch cards to work from 9-5. They want to see results of their work and an impact it’s creating on society or businesses. They want to experiment and try different environments looking for the best fit for them. We have a great number of ventures that we work on simultaneously. Appunite therefore is able to meet different, long term needs of talents.

Teams will always try to keep the talent as long as possible. They know that knowledge that remains with each member can’t be valued, and most questions will be raised when a talent exits the organization. Especially at early stages, that’s something that may kill the business. We are able to address these concerns with a much bigger diversity of people with the same position/experience in our structures.

We work with a number of products at different stages of their lifecycle. Working closely with clients allows us to create positions in organizations as if they were their own. Therefore, we may create opportunities to grow for Appuniters for their desired career paths, internally create multiple architect, CTO, manager or expert positions with different products we work with. We know the strong and weak sides of each member and it’s never related to maturity. Therefore, will be much better at supporting these careers.

We will have an opportunity to connect business requirements with talent needs and retain knowledge when transitioning to a new, big opportunity in another product. Creating a workplace based on freedom and responsibility is our great advantage over single product teams.

A workplace created for people with the same interests, but different backgrounds will boost engineers’, product owners’, QAs’ and designers’ growth.

## Software houses and talent marketplaces will exist
There will always be a certain number of companies that look for an expert or have a project to execute. They exactly know who they are looking for or what they want to build. Software houses and talent marketplaces will exist to solve these companies’ needs. We don’t want to compete with them, we might even look for help from such kind of companies in certain situations.

Moreover, over time, we will see specialization in software houses work, for instance, there will be specialized e-commerce software houses, IoT software houses, R&D software houses.

## Our cooperation with partners
We need to have partners, not customers. We will open to new kinds of relationships where we will be a joint-venture or exchange shares with organizations we cooperate with. This will create a synergy where Appunite investors will care about product value we create and product investors will also care about Appunite’s value. Moreover, this way we are able to create ESOP plans that traditional early startups have for their early employees. It will even strengthen the intrinsic workplace of the future.

On the other hand, we will help young businesses with a seed fund, that will allow them to raise funds for their businesses way faster.

With our approach, we will be able to create sustainable teams working with partners as if they were built from scratch. We are able to think about product needs at different stages and take lessons from previous or other partners’ experiences, something that is not possible in a single product team. It will enable us to work much more efficiently with partners, that will benefit from this cooperation, reducing risks related to software development.

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This article has been created as a document for Appunite investors, employees and partners as an attempt to predict the future of product development and how Appunite will adjust to make it happen.

This document was created for Appunite investors, employees and partners as an attempt to predict the future of product development and how Appunite will adjust to make it happen.

Our perspective on software development | Appunite Blog

Our perspective on software development

*In this short article, I share my thoughts on how to write a great digital product brief.*

Let’s make something clear for all of you reading this - a good brief can help you get what you want regardless of the side you are on.

From the sender's perspective, a good brief will save time on explanations, lower the possibility of misunderstandings and speed up the time from initial contact to decision making. Time is money, isn’t it?

From the addressee’s perspective, a good brief can help understand the foundations of a project and it is the best starting point for continuing a discussion about delivering something valuable in the foreseeable future.

No one wants to discuss the points I’ll mention in this article in the middle of an ongoing project. If it happens, then the chances your product will be delivered on time, within budget and you won’t hate your partner on the way, are (the) small(est).

I am not able to count the amount of project briefs I have gone through, and I can tell you that there is nothing better than a spot on information about the project for a person responsible for the first contact.

![happy seal](https://appunite-blog.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/images/f798e40b/6d92/c2VhbCBtZW1lLmpwZw==)

Some briefs are good, some are ok and some are “I want an app, how much will it cost?” [sic!]. But, what is a good brief? What should it consist of? There is a thin line between a 60-page documentation and the “I want an app” brief. The first one is something business people like because it looks professional and comprehensive (at least from their bosses’ perspective). The problem is that these are usually prepared by business people with no or little help from someone with a technical background. Those type of documentations can give you a good sense of the product, but they usually end up being vastly different from the final look of an actual product. This is due to the fact that it’s very difficult to predict the technical challenges some of the business ideas will impose. I always wish that someone who prepared this type of documentation could put in the same amount of effort into project discovery with the development team.

The latter one usually means that someone, for some reason, did not have enough time or, what’s even worse, desire to write down a couple of lines of text. That’s a red light for someone like me, but the reasons for writing such a “brief” are not limited to the ones I mention here. Sometimes, it’s simply a fear of disclosing too much before getting to know the other side. I get that. Therefore, it’s worth verifying such a brief as it might turn out completely opposite to what the cover of a book shows.

Fortunately, most of the briefs I receive are somehow in-between. There are some mutual traits that make a good brief and I’ll try to narrow them to the 4 ones I believe are crucial. In this article, I’ll try to share my experience with what works best in my opinion. Here we go.

## Why?

You probably know Simon Sinek’s famous “Why/How/What circle” (if not click [here](https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action). You're welcome). It’s difficult not to agree with “Why” being one of the most important things you’d want to know. You may ask why ;) (hope you will) - because knowing the context in which you will operate can give you a lot of information. For me, the answer to “Why” makes it easier to jump into the clients’ and potential users’ shoes, anticipate questions and quickly suggest appropriate solutions. There is nothing better than a good brainstorm in which you can compare different fields of specialization against an idea.

From the client’s perspective, there is nothing better than making sure your intent is well understood and explaining “Why” to people, who will make your idea real, seems like a good thing to do.

From a team perspective “Why” can help them in motivation as they will know the reason for doing something. No one likes to be treated like a “tool”. 

![motivation circle](https://appunite-blog.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/images/43631d22/e229/Y2hhcnQtMDQucG5n)

## How?

The second step in “Why/How/What circle”. This one does not have to be complete, but it’s good to know which platforms you’re aiming at. Are you planning to have a mobile app, web app, or maybe both? Do you have a design or are you looking for this as well? Basically, this should give an idea of how  you are planning to approach the problem you identified. This will help in defining a team composition and gathering information about availability. Without this, you may be walking into a grocery store, looking for a pair of shoes - a waste of time.

## What is the preferred release date and why?

Even though it may be difficult to prepare an estimate of the development during first contact, the preferred release date will set expectations and help to verify the plans vs actual amount of time a team will have to meet them. It may turn out that the plan is too ambitious and, in order to keep the release date, you will need to narrow the scope even further. The MVP approach is always preferred in this scenario, so narrowing the scope to the required minimum and testing the idea against the target audience.

## What is the budget?

You may not want to share this with the company your contacting, thinking “I don’t want to reveal my cards just yet” - it’s not a poker game. It does not necessarily have to be put upfront while contacting a software development company for the first time, but if your budget is limited, then it's good to discuss it because it will affect the time a company can spend on your product. Software development is unpredictable to some extent, so it’s difficult to say precisely how much the development of a certain application will take. If your plan is ambitious but your budget limited, it might be good to refine it and stay realistic - “Rome wasn't built in a day”. Limited budget is nothing bad, but unrealistic expectations on top of a limited budget are. We don’t want the scenario from the picture below as much as you don’t.

![client budget vs client expectations](https://appunite-blog.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/images/ba7860cb/d319/aG9yc2UucG5n "client budget vs expectations")

## Example brief

**Why:** We’ve found out that due to an increase in number of cars per household in X city, people have problems with traffic while commuting and it takes them too much of their private time.

**What:** Create a mobile application that will gather data of its users’ commuting habits, and based on an average traffic congestion, the app would suggest time to leave the house/office in order to spend the least time commuting from A to B.”

**Release date:** We would like to have an MVP ready for testing by the end of summer time because Autumn marks the beginning of an increase in car traffic.

**Budget:** We can afford to spend around X of our current budget on MVP. (The amount here would indicate that Sender has enough to build a backend service and a cross-platform mobile application with a small buffer).

## Wrapping up

Ok, so we have a reason, we have the means, we have the time and the budget. What’s left? Many things, because a good brief should be created with project characteristics in mind. I could dive into things like business models, preferred tech-stack, stakeholders, type of projects and so on, but that’s not what this article is about. I believe that the above examples (with a small exception for an unlimited budget) make a  good brief. This information will set the expectations on both sides and create a great foreground for an upcoming successful partnership.

Let me know in the comments what **you** think works best.

Get in touch at andrzej@appunite.com if you’d like to discuss your current or upcoming digital product!


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In this short article, Andrzej our Business Development Manager, shares his thoughts on how to write a great digital product brief.

How to Write a Project Brief for a Software Development Company

# Organizational flexibility in times of crisis

Flexibility, ability to adapt and react fast to the changing demands and environment are no novelty but the current market situation related to COVID-19 pushes every organization to the limits. Luckily for us, we have always stood our ground saying that agility is the key to our business success and it pays off now when our clients need a reliable and trusted partner who can switch priorities fast and respond to their objectives without blocking their business plans. 

At Appunite, approximately 100 people work at the moment and this number is growing. On a daily basis, it is sometimes hard to spot if the flexibility of our software development company is on the right track but in situations such as the current one, we can test our approach. 

When the COVID-19 crisis began, one of our clients, Zumba, came to us with an immediate matter. Zumba® is the largest branded fitness company in the world – reporting more than 15 million weekly participants, in 200,000 locations, across 186 countries. Zumba® blends contagious world rhythms with easy-to-follow choreography for an effective workout that empowers participants to become their best selves - mind, body and soul.Due to the social distancing and closure of fitness facilities their business faced a serious challenge.

In terms of protecting their instructors and maintaining Zumba classes in the time of the pandemic, they had an idea to develop a mobile application that serves as a tool that allows instructors to set up and host livestream classes in which the participants could join from their home. In a normal situation, there would be plenty of time for organizational matters between us and the client, but this was an emergency call that required immediate attention and action. So we rolled up our sleeves and got to work. We have a long business relationship with Zumba and we couldn’t leave our partner in need.

What was the result? In no time, have we built the team, planned work, set communication and we were ready to go. Graphic designs, development, testing and deployment. 

<img src="https://appunite-blog.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/images/bdd61b74/a6bd/enVtYmEzMjEucG5n" alt="Zumba ZIN Studio" style={{ zoom: "25%" }} />

## How did we manage to do so?

### Agility
Our key to staying flexible is agile management. In project management ([here you can read more about it](https://appunite.com/blog/agile-project-management-appunite)) as well as in day to day operations.

**Quick reaction and change of priorities** **·** **Fasten work planning to ensure delivery of a new product** **·** **Reorganization of the team in just a couple of days**

### Teamwork
A term that is often used as a buzzword. But in our case, it makes all the difference. We put a lot of focus on that matter because only when a team solves problems collectively, it generates more productivity and can react and act faster in terms of any challenge or change. In SaaS development company like Appunite, it is crucial.

**Additional meetings to synchronize clients and our teams** **·** **Team partition into small workgroups that work simultaneously on different parts of an application**

### Mindset
In our opinion, software development services are not just about checking off the tasks from the list. Instead, we focus on what’s truly important for a client's business. This way, we are more eager to change priorities fast without a feeling of our plan falling apart.

**Concentration and understanding of the situation** **·** **Despite numerous changes, a team made an effort to keep their morale and effectiveness boosted** 

## Summary 
The result of those efforts is a brand new member of Zumba’s mobile apps family - “ZIN Studio™” that lets Zumba® instructors host livestream classes! You can check it out on [Google Play](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zumba.zinrecord&hl=en) and the [App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/zin-studio-livestream/id1502853249).

The times are challenging for many organizations and like never before it is important to have someone who will be there for you and help you adapt and respond to the market needs swiftly. If you need help adapting your services or products to the current market situation, [write to us](https://appunite.com/briefs) and describe your problem. We’ll do what we can to help with web and mobile app development for the startup you run or the enterprise you work for. Stay safe! 


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Appunite always stood for flexibility and now in these difficult times, we had a chance to prove the value of our approach.

Organizational flexibility in times of crisis

*In this text I will share my thoughts on starting your business and building mobile/web product.*

When I was younger I thought that it couldn’t be that hard to create something. You’ve got an idea, just implement it and it will sell itself, because it’s so good right? I also thought that I can lift a 2 ton trailer when I was 5. I have a scar on my forehead to this day :).

**As time passed I have learned that basing something on “I thought” might be painful.**

## “I know we can make it if we take it slow” (The Killers — When you were young)
When I started working in a corporation on their biggest project at that time which was introducing a completely new retail chain to the market I understood how much effort it takes not only to build something, but also to ensure its success (ensure might not be a good word, but deal with it for now).

Let me name a few things that an entrepreneur will encounter while working on his product: R&D, P&L, BEP, ROI, sales, marketing, PR, category management, controlling, SEO, SEM, accounting, CRM, HR, accounting, operations, the list goes on and on.

For a big company like the one I’ve been working at, most of these have dedicated people with experience in given fields, and even that does not ensure that the project will be successful.

Does it mean that a lonely founder without much experience is doomed to fail? Of course not! Actually, I think that anyone can do it. Whether it will be successful or not is a different story, but remember to learn not only from your own mistakes, but from others mistakes as well. Now while working at a mobile/web development agency (appunite.com) I come across startups everyday. I see that many of them take wrong turns that have/will have tremendous impact on their business. Some examples of common mistakes:

* **No MVP** — that’s kind of “I know better” attitude that might work if you’re a clairvoyant,
* **Hiring a bunch of people at the beginning** — expect others to do your work? Try, I dare you,
* **Money>Product** — sure, everyone would like to be rich, but you won’t be selling money right?
* **Not taking advice into account** — “I know better” again. Everyone has their unique point of view so any advice is good, even if it’s actually wrong.

I think that you shouldn’t think big at the beginning of your road. Think small, there is actually a term for that in Japanese incorporated in most of big companies approach to business called **改善 (Kaizen)** which literally means “change for better”, but the business philosophy behind kaizen is to improve with small steps, every day, continuously.

## Let there be light!

![startup realisation](https://www.dropbox.com/s/3u6xop0rq0n68hl/light-bulb-on-cover.jpeg?raw=1)

If you already decided you want to start something — don’t wait, take the first step and start doing it. Otherwise, you’ll end up thinking about if for too long and eventually give up.

**There are two main aspects of business:**

1. Project — from idea to deployment to the market. This stage focuses on research and development.

2. Operation — maintaining the product. This stage focuses more on marketing, sales, CRM.

Obviously project stage is the one we’re looking at. It requires less money, but more risk is involved, so it’s good to **do your homework.**

**Focus on what you can, instead of cannot.**
In the pre-seed stage there is actually a lot of things you can:

1. Think of **what you are** particularly **good at** — it’s easier and you will be more creditable with prior experience/knowledge,
2. Think of the **challenges the community** around your interest **has** — even small things can make a big difference,
3. **Do** the market **research**, basic SWOT would also be good — confront your idea with available solutions, find a niche you could fill in,
4. Prepare an early **idea** and try to **keep it simple** — you should be able to explain its core values within 30 seconds, Google search “Elevator pitch”,
5. **Ask** people **around** you what do they think about it — understand that your point of view is only yours, pivot your idea if necessary.

There is a lot of things that I didn’t cover, and even with the best idea ever it’s still just an idea, worth nothing if you are not able to properly execute it. Assuming your target group isn’t small (an idea needs an audience) and you won’t be lying to yourself on the way, you should be able to create something that is at least interesting.

**Don’t think about profits, if this is your main reason to start your business — don’t.**


howtostartup

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In this text I will share my thoughts on starting your business and building mobile/web product.

Thoughts on how to start up and build a virtual product

Featured *content*

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We are here to revolutionize software design, development, delivery and build products that challenge the status quo. 