Why Agile Development?

Because we have found that Agile and iterative-based methods are the most consistently successful way to build software. Communication, planning, estimation, and the ability to deal with requests for changes to functionality quickly aren't the only things companies need to succeed -- but you won't succeed without them.

Why do you require more than one engineer on a project?

We call our approach a Team of Two (or more). While similar to pair programming our Teams of Two are able to work individually on many tasks as well as pair when faced with unusual situations or architectural decisions

We supplement the team with a managing engineer, who supervises several projects, and is able to offer an extra and experienced set of eyes. The extra motivation and support mean that each engineer is able to do more than they would if they were the only person on the project.

How involved will I, as the client, need to be?

We require that you (or your product manager) attend weekly calls with the engineers. We know how busy schedules get, so we are flexible on when the weekly call occurs, but it needs to happen every week.

The first kickoff meeting tends to run for 2-3 hours, but the weekly meeting can quickly get down to 30-60 minutes as you get more familiar with the process.

By putting the planning into one big weekly meeting, it will minimize the amount of contact required during the week. However, there still may be questions that come up during the week, and we want to make sure that we can use email/IM/SMS/call/smoke signals to get fast responses. Our engineers preferred method of communication during the week is an ongoing Skype group chat with your technical and project managers, but we will work around your needs.

Do you offer hosting?

Not exactly. Our operations team is available to take care of all the server stuff for you -- we just don't physically host the servers.

We encourage our clients to use Amazon Web Services because of its great reliability and affordability for startups.